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My Husband wrote this last Spring to convey why we are moving to our friends and family. I love that bbq is in the top 10! We'll have to add and refine this now that we are registered NC residents
Thanks for reading
The decision to move didn’t just happen overnight. We have been talking about it for a couple of years now. Ultimately, we decided it would be a good move for the following reasons:
1. In North Carolina, houses are still affordable. As a rule of thumb, take the price of a house in Southern California and divide it by three. I’m serious. Especially now that we’re married, we need to be thinking of the future, and I think we’re pretty well priced out of the future in California.
2. Although I’ll still be telecommuting for my same contract work in LA (exactly as I am now but from a different physical location), as a backup plan we’ll be just minutes away from Research Triangle Park in North Carolina. Research Triangle Park is home to over 30,000 tech jobs, and has potential employers with names like IBM, Cisco, RedHat, BASF, Bayer, DuPont, EMC, the Environmental Protection Agency, Ericsson, Extreme Networks, Freescale Semiconductor, General Electric, Lenovo, SAS, Underwriters Laboratories, Verizon, and dozens of others. Of course, there are also a lot of other employers that aren’t in the specially designated Research Triangle Park area as well, including three nearby universities, multiple health care and insurance companies, non-profits, and all sorts of other assorted small businesses. All of those businesses need computer people, even if that’s not their primary function. In general, pay rates for technology jobs are surprisingly similar to those in LA.
3. Even though Disneyland won’t be an hour’s drive away, Disney World (arguably the better park) is an hour’s flight away.
4. Four hours by car to Las Vegas from Southern California, four hours by plane to Las Vegas from North Carolina.
5. I didn’t know America had any indigenous food to be proud of, but it does. It’s called North Carolina BBQ. Words can’t really describe how delicious it is, but think of the best BBQ you’ve ever had in Southern California, and then make it about 100% better. And then dip it in some ridiculously good sauce. As it turns out, North Carolina is one of the four major regions in the country where the art of American BBQ originated.
6. We were in North Carolina for a solid week, and I only heard one car honk. Since there are far less people on the road, driving is a breeze and goes much faster than the overly congested LA freeway system. I don’t expect the freeways to become less congested in LA in the coming years.
7. The TSA employees were actually courteous and helpful at the RDU airport. If you’ve ever been to LAX, you’ll either think this is impressive, or flat out refuse to believe me. And yet it really happened.
8. On average, everything is clean and new, more so than in Southern California. It actually reminded me more of Santa Barbara in some ways. The area is growing rapidly and the area we’re moving to had lots of land to build on. As a result, there is actually a lot of central planning that went into the cities, making them very pleasant and practical to live in.
9. The default thing you’ll find in North Carolina, in the absence of human intervention, is wall to wall green trees. When anything gets built, step one is to clear out some trees, and step two is to build whatever they’re going to build. Even without any sprinklers, everything everywhere seems to be bright healthy green.
10. Cary, North Carolina (the primary city we’re considering), has been ranked one of the five safest cities in America, and one of the five overall best cities in America.
11. Even though North Carolina is one of those states that isn’t California, let me assure you it really is nice there (I think most people hear “not California” and imagine tumbleweeds and Wal-Mart). The greater Raleigh-Durham metropolitan area is home to about 1.5 million people, so you can find just about anything you’re looking for. They have great restaurants (including pretty good Mexican food), a local music scene, local artists, performing arts, theater, museums, diverse people with diverse interests, etc.
12. The weather is pretty similar to California, except a bit more humid and probably about 10 degrees or so cooler on average. The net result is that the winters are a bit colder, and the summers feel about as hot because of the humidity. There might occasionally be a nominal amount of snow, but there will be no shoveling necessary.
13. The beaches, which are just two or three hours away, are on the East coast. The water there comes up from Mexico, and not down from Alaska. Despite California’s reputation as a beach state, the water is much warmer and more comfortable at a beach in North Carolina.
14. Although they do have hurricanes out on the East coast, by the time most of them get a couple hours inland to where we’ll be living, most of them are just big storms. And unlike earthquakes and wildfires, most of the time you get days worth of advance notice.
15. Apparently High Point, North Carolina is the furniture capital of the world. It seems that people in other states across the country who are buying a good deal of furniture can sometimes save thousands of dollars by flying to North Carolina, staying there for a day or two, and flying home and having the furniture shipped to their house. (Wife is a huge home decor fan)
16. Although we’ll definitely miss our family and friends in California, we do have some good friends and a few family out there, which will make the transition much easier. We’ll come back and visit, and we hope that some of our family and friends will come and visit us as well. Who knows, some of them might not want to leave.
16. Although we’ll definitely miss our family and friends in California, we do have some good friends and a few family out there, which will make the transition much easier. We’ll come back and visit, and we hope that some of our family and friends will come and visit us as well. Who knows, some of them might not want to leave.
We visited family in Charlotte when I was six (1986) and moved from Palm Springs to Hillsborough a year later!
Welcome to NC! I like the list that your Husband made. I hope that your friends and family read it and understand your reasons. I like the part about the Earthquakes he wrote. Good god.. I still have nightmares every now and than from the Northridge quake At least its nice to know that you can turn on the local or the Weather channel and see if something is coming your way.
I did not move here directly from Southern Ca, It was more like.. CA to NJ to AZ to NC LOL! It is very green here and pretty.
It seems like you and your Husband are staying very positive and your happy and confident about moving here and thats wonderful!
6. We were in North Carolina for a solid week, and I only heard one car honk. Since there are far less people on the road, driving is a breeze and goes much faster than the overly congested LA freeway system. I don’t expect the freeways to become less congested in LA in the coming years.
With 40,000 people moving here each and every year, this certainly won't last long! Don't let those "California freeway" driving skills get too stale, because we get closer and closer to that level of traffic every year.
Quote:
9. The default thing you’ll find in North Carolina, in the absence of human intervention, is wall to wall green trees. When anything gets built, step one is to clear out some trees, and step two is to build whatever they’re going to build.
I don't quite get the jist of this--he acknowledges that our beautiful trees are being destroyed with each and every new development project...but lists this as a good thing?
Quote:
The weather is pretty similar to California, except a bit more humid and probably about 10 degrees or so cooler on average. The net result is that the winters are a bit colder, and the summers feel about as hot because of the humidity. There might occasionally be a nominal amount of snow, but there will be no shoveling necessary.
Actually, not true. We do have "shovel-needing" snow here every couple of years or so on average--we had 6" last winter. It's not feet and feet, but your life will be much easier if you have a snow shovel to clear off your driveway when we do get those snowstorms...we just hadn't had any accumulation at all in 4 winters until this year.
[/quote]
Actually, not true. We do have "shovel-needing" snow here every couple of years or so on average--we had 6" last winter. It's not feet and feet, but your life will be much easier if you have a snow shovel to clear off your driveway when we do get those snowstorms...we just hadn't had any accumulation at all in 4 winters until this year.
I used a plastic box top lid to shovel our driveway last winter, as did our neighbor from Florida... not the best but, great exercise!
Quote:
With 40,000 people moving here each and every year, this certainly won't last long! Don't let those "California freeway" driving skills get too stale, because we get closer and closer to that level of traffic every year.
We were in LA three weeks ago... I highly highly doubt the triangle will ever get that bad. Bumper to Bumper everywhere we went... "a drive that should take 10 minutes but takes an hour" was normal. This was even on a random Tuesday mid-morning... Have you ever been to Los Angeles?
Quote:
I don't quite get the jist of this--he acknowledges that our beautiful trees are being destroyed with each and every new development project...but lists this as a good thing?
In LA, which is a dessert, there are palm trees... and other trees that we have to put in and water to keep alive. Then they burn down and they start all over again I'm kidding. I think the point my dh was making is that there are SO many trees that you have to clear some before you start building. It is sad that there are a lot of trees being destroyed to put in subdivisions and shopping malls, that's why we bought our house in a subdivision that is surrounded by natural trees. Today, which is one year after writing the original "essay" above, we can see the benefit to keeping the trees instead of clearing them. But, I think the point here is that wow... there are more trees here than we have ever seen anywhere. Ever. And that's great.
My Husband wrote this last Spring to convey why we are moving to our friends and family. I love that bbq is in the top 10! We'll have to add and refine this now that we are registered NC residents
Thanks for reading
The decision to move didn’t just happen overnight. We have been talking about it for a couple of years now. Ultimately, we decided it would be a good move for the following reasons:
1. In North Carolina, houses are still affordable. As a rule of thumb, take the price of a house in Southern California and divide it by three. I’m serious. Especially now that we’re married, we need to be thinking of the future, and I think we’re pretty well priced out of the future in California.
2. Although I’ll still be telecommuting for my same contract work in LA (exactly as I am now but from a different physical location), as a backup plan we’ll be just minutes away from Research Triangle Park in North Carolina. Research Triangle Park is home to over 30,000 tech jobs, and has potential employers with names like IBM, Cisco, RedHat, BASF, Bayer, DuPont, EMC, the Environmental Protection Agency, Ericsson, Extreme Networks, Freescale Semiconductor, General Electric, Lenovo, SAS, Underwriters Laboratories, Verizon, and dozens of others. Of course, there are also a lot of other employers that aren’t in the specially designated Research Triangle Park area as well, including three nearby universities, multiple health care and insurance companies, non-profits, and all sorts of other assorted small businesses. All of those businesses need computer people, even if that’s not their primary function. In general, pay rates for technology jobs are surprisingly similar to those in LA.
3. Even though Disneyland won’t be an hour’s drive away, Disney World (arguably the better park) is an hour’s flight away.
4. Four hours by car to Las Vegas from Southern California, four hours by plane to Las Vegas from North Carolina.
5. I didn’t know America had any indigenous food to be proud of, but it does. It’s called North Carolina BBQ. Words can’t really describe how delicious it is, but think of the best BBQ you’ve ever had in Southern California, and then make it about 100% better. And then dip it in some ridiculously good sauce. As it turns out, North Carolina is one of the four major regions in the country where the art of American BBQ originated.
6. We were in North Carolina for a solid week, and I only heard one car honk. Since there are far less people on the road, driving is a breeze and goes much faster than the overly congested LA freeway system. I don’t expect the freeways to become less congested in LA in the coming years.
7. The TSA employees were actually courteous and helpful at the RDU airport. If you’ve ever been to LAX, you’ll either think this is impressive, or flat out refuse to believe me. And yet it really happened.
8. On average, everything is clean and new, more so than in Southern California. It actually reminded me more of Santa Barbara in some ways. The area is growing rapidly and the area we’re moving to had lots of land to build on. As a result, there is actually a lot of central planning that went into the cities, making them very pleasant and practical to live in.
9. The default thing you’ll find in North Carolina, in the absence of human intervention, is wall to wall green trees. When anything gets built, step one is to clear out some trees, and step two is to build whatever they’re going to build. Even without any sprinklers, everything everywhere seems to be bright healthy green.
10. Cary, North Carolina (the primary city we’re considering), has been ranked one of the five safest cities in America, and one of the five overall best cities in America.
11. Even though North Carolina is one of those states that isn’t California, let me assure you it really is nice there (I think most people hear “not California” and imagine tumbleweeds and Wal-Mart). The greater Raleigh-Durham metropolitan area is home to about 1.5 million people, so you can find just about anything you’re looking for. They have great restaurants (including pretty good Mexican food), a local music scene, local artists, performing arts, theater, museums, diverse people with diverse interests, etc.
12. The weather is pretty similar to California, except a bit more humid and probably about 10 degrees or so cooler on average. The net result is that the winters are a bit colder, and the summers feel about as hot because of the humidity. There might occasionally be a nominal amount of snow, but there will be no shoveling necessary.
13. The beaches, which are just two or three hours away, are on the East coast. The water there comes up from Mexico, and not down from Alaska. Despite California’s reputation as a beach state, the water is much warmer and more comfortable at a beach in North Carolina.
14. Although they do have hurricanes out on the East coast, by the time most of them get a couple hours inland to where we’ll be living, most of them are just big storms. And unlike earthquakes and wildfires, most of the time you get days worth of advance notice.
15. Apparently High Point, North Carolina is the furniture capital of the world. It seems that people in other states across the country who are buying a good deal of furniture can sometimes save thousands of dollars by flying to North Carolina, staying there for a day or two, and flying home and having the furniture shipped to their house. (Wife is a huge home decor fan)
16. Although we’ll definitely miss our family and friends in California, we do have some good friends and a few family out there, which will make the transition much easier. We’ll come back and visit, and we hope that some of our family and friends will come and visit us as well. Who knows, some of them might not want to leave.
How nice to read so many positive comments in one post!!!
I used a plastic box top lid to shovel our driveway last winter, as did our neighbor from Florida... not the best but, great exercise!
We were in LA three weeks ago... I highly highly doubt the triangle will ever get that bad. Bumper to Bumper everywhere we went... "a drive that should take 10 minutes but takes an hour" was normal. This was even on a random Tuesday mid-morning... Have you ever been to Los Angeles?
In LA, which is a dessert, there are palm trees... and other trees that we have to put in and water to keep alive. Then they burn down and they start all over again I'm kidding. I think the point my dh was making is that there are SO many trees that you have to clear some before you start building. It is sad that there are a lot of trees being destroyed to put in subdivisions and shopping malls, that's why we bought our house in a subdivision that is surrounded by natural trees. Today, which is one year after writing the original "essay" above, we can see the benefit to keeping the trees instead of clearing them. But, I think the point here is that wow... there are more trees here than we have ever seen anywhere. Ever. And that's great.
Thanks for your input
Petunia, Thanks for writing what I was going to write in response! It saved me some time. Rep points for you!!!
Actually, not true. We do have "shovel-needing" snow here every couple of years or so on average--we had 6" last winter. It's not feet and feet, but your life will be much easier if you have a snow shovel to clear off your driveway when we do get those snowstorms...we just hadn't had any accumulation at all in 4 winters until this year.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Petunia16
I used a plastic box top lid to shovel our driveway last winter, as did our neighbor from Florida... not the best but, great exercise!
LOL I used my broom. It was dry snow so very easily removed.
I hope you enjoy NC. I sure do. I moved from Irvine to NC (via SC), and love it here. But . . .
The weather is in no way similar (#12). It is MUCH more humid (SoCal is dry), and much hotter. Winters here are much colder. Lows in SoCal may average in the 50s, lows here can average in the 30s.
It is true we have a lot of tech and computer companies, but don't rely on them for jobs. Nearly all of them have had massive layoffs, as people on this board can attest to. There are a glut of IT and computer geeks here.
Cary is nice, and the newer parts (the west and south sides) do remind me of Irvine, because of it's newness and manicured look. But there are other parts of the triangle that are equally, or more, appealing, so don't focus just on Cary as a place to live. It seems that a lot of people fall in love with Cary, and move here, because it seems comfortable and more in line with what they were leaving behind.
And you are 100% mistaken about the Mexican food here (#11). It is crap. Don't fool yourself.
Everything green (#9)? Now it is. Live here in the fall when all the leaves drop.
There are pros and cons to living here. Don't hype it up too much, or you are bound to be disappointed after you really live here.
My Husband wrote this last Spring to convey why we are moving to our friends and family. I love that bbq is in the top 10! We'll have to add and refine this now that we are registered NC residents
Thanks for reading
The decision to move didn’t just happen overnight. We have been talking about it for a couple of years now. Ultimately, we decided it would be a good move for the following reasons:
1. In North Carolina, houses are still affordable. As a rule of thumb, take the price of a house in Southern California and divide it by three. I’m serious. Especially now that we’re married, we need to be thinking of the future, and I think we’re pretty well priced out of the future in California.
2. Although I’ll still be telecommuting for my same contract work in LA (exactly as I am now but from a different physical location), as a backup plan we’ll be just minutes away from Research Triangle Park in North Carolina. Research Triangle Park is home to over 30,000 tech jobs, and has potential employers with names like IBM, Cisco, RedHat, BASF, Bayer, DuPont, EMC, the Environmental Protection Agency, Ericsson, Extreme Networks, Freescale Semiconductor, General Electric, Lenovo, SAS, Underwriters Laboratories, Verizon, and dozens of others. Of course, there are also a lot of other employers that aren’t in the specially designated Research Triangle Park area as well, including three nearby universities, multiple health care and insurance companies, non-profits, and all sorts of other assorted small businesses. All of those businesses need computer people, even if that’s not their primary function. In general, pay rates for technology jobs are surprisingly similar to those in LA.
3. Even though Disneyland won’t be an hour’s drive away, Disney World (arguably the better park) is an hour’s flight away.
4. Four hours by car to Las Vegas from Southern California, four hours by plane to Las Vegas from North Carolina.
5. I didn’t know America had any indigenous food to be proud of, but it does. It’s called North Carolina BBQ. Words can’t really describe how delicious it is, but think of the best BBQ you’ve ever had in Southern California, and then make it about 100% better. And then dip it in some ridiculously good sauce. As it turns out, North Carolina is one of the four major regions in the country where the art of American BBQ originated.
6. We were in North Carolina for a solid week, and I only heard one car honk. Since there are far less people on the road, driving is a breeze and goes much faster than the overly congested LA freeway system. I don’t expect the freeways to become less congested in LA in the coming years.
7. The TSA employees were actually courteous and helpful at the RDU airport. If you’ve ever been to LAX, you’ll either think this is impressive, or flat out refuse to believe me. And yet it really happened.
8. On average, everything is clean and new, more so than in Southern California. It actually reminded me more of Santa Barbara in some ways. The area is growing rapidly and the area we’re moving to had lots of land to build on. As a result, there is actually a lot of central planning that went into the cities, making them very pleasant and practical to live in.
9. The default thing you’ll find in North Carolina, in the absence of human intervention, is wall to wall green trees. When anything gets built, step one is to clear out some trees, and step two is to build whatever they’re going to build. Even without any sprinklers, everything everywhere seems to be bright healthy green.
10. Cary, North Carolina (the primary city we’re considering), has been ranked one of the five safest cities in America, and one of the five overall best cities in America.
11. Even though North Carolina is one of those states that isn’t California, let me assure you it really is nice there (I think most people hear “not California” and imagine tumbleweeds and Wal-Mart). The greater Raleigh-Durham metropolitan area is home to about 1.5 million people, so you can find just about anything you’re looking for. They have great restaurants (including pretty good Mexican food), a local music scene, local artists, performing arts, theater, museums, diverse people with diverse interests, etc.
12. The weather is pretty similar to California, except a bit more humid and probably about 10 degrees or so cooler on average. The net result is that the winters are a bit colder, and the summers feel about as hot because of the humidity. There might occasionally be a nominal amount of snow, but there will be no shoveling necessary.
13. The beaches, which are just two or three hours away, are on the East coast. The water there comes up from Mexico, and not down from Alaska. Despite California’s reputation as a beach state, the water is much warmer and more comfortable at a beach in North Carolina.
14. Although they do have hurricanes out on the East coast, by the time most of them get a couple hours inland to where we’ll be living, most of them are just big storms. And unlike earthquakes and wildfires, most of the time you get days worth of advance notice.
15. Apparently High Point, North Carolina is the furniture capital of the world. It seems that people in other states across the country who are buying a good deal of furniture can sometimes save thousands of dollars by flying to North Carolina, staying there for a day or two, and flying home and having the furniture shipped to their house. (Wife is a huge home decor fan)
16. Although we’ll definitely miss our family and friends in California, we do have some good friends and a few family out there, which will make the transition much easier. We’ll come back and visit, and we hope that some of our family and friends will come and visit us as well. Who knows, some of them might not want to leave.
It's so great to hear a happy ending! Glad your enjoying NC! I hope to join you soon.
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We'll have to add and refine this now that we are registered NC residents 
At least its nice to know that you can turn on the local or the Weather channel and see if something is coming your way.
