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Old 04-01-2018, 08:24 AM
 
5,110 posts, read 3,375,160 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rtloucks View Post
This is funny. I completely agree. Other than the Springs and Boulder maybe. BUt we felt so secluded in CO. WE have moved all over and liked Denver overall, but could not help feeling trapped. We like to travel by car too often and never seemed to go anywhere when we lived there because we could not get anywhere interesting in a half days drive.
This is an interesting statement because it shows how perspective is everything. Most of my life was spent on the east coast near easily accessible big cities and personally, I think there are a ton of interesting places to get to in a half-day's drive from Denver, just not metropolitan areas. In a half-day I can be in Moab, UT, one of my favorite places on this planet, and so many cool CO mountain towns in between, or Crested Butte, the Black Hills, Devils Tower, Santa Fe! Add another couple of hours and I can get to Jackson. I can drive to Vegas in a day. One of our favorite places to go for a Sunday drive is up to Estes Park and RMNP, and back, and that doesn't come close to taking the entire day. Obviously we all have our own ideas of what we consider interesting, which is fine. Neither my husband nor I feel the isolation, but many do.
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Old 04-01-2018, 08:31 AM
 
Location: 0.83 Atmospheres
11,477 posts, read 11,464,766 times
Reputation: 11976
Quote:
Originally Posted by rtloucks View Post
Dont believe anyone who tells you that its 70 degrees in the winter, snow in the morning golfing by noon type talk. It gets just as cold in Denver if not colder as it does in MN or other cold states. Just as much snow ass anywhere and it sticks around. When we lived there it snowed from early November to early may with no exaggeration. During the December/Jan months it was constantly in the single digits up to about 40 on good days,, but a far stretch from the 70 people would brag about.

Well I just looked at post history and rtloucks moved to Denver in August of 2015.

The maximum high temperature for December 2015 and January 2016 was 69 degrees. The lowest high temp over that period was 19 degrees. There was NEVER a day that it was stuck in the single digits.

December had 6 days in the 50s and 3 in the 60s.
January had 7 days in the 50s and 1 in the 60s
February had 7 days in the 50s, 8 days in the 60s, and 1 in the 70s.

Over the 3 month period there were 13 days where the low was in the single digits. So....20 more days with highs in the 50s, 60s, or 70s than lows in the single digits.

Your first winter here seems to have been brutal.....

Want to compare it to MN over the same period????






Last edited by SkyDog77; 04-01-2018 at 08:41 AM..
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Old 04-01-2018, 09:41 AM
 
Location: Scottsdale
2,067 posts, read 1,622,005 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sweatyinFL View Post
My wife and I are seriously contemplating a move to the Denver area within the next 2 years. We currently live in the Orlando area (Windermere) and have grown tired of the beaches, theme parks, bugs and the awful humidity. When the weather is pleasant (as limited as it is), we like bike riding and hiking on trails; basically being outdoors and not near masses of people.

I moved to Orlando from NY about 18 years ago, but my wife has always lived in FL. We have no children (just 2 dogs) and don't plan on any. I'm in construction project management and hold a BSME while my wife is in pharmaceutical sales. Together we make very decent money.

We're both flying up there at the end of April to see how we like it; she's been there before and LOVED it. Going to stay 2 nights in Denver, 2 nights in Boulder and 2 nights in Colorado Springs to try and get a feel for the region.

-Can anyone provide any insight on either of our job markets? We would want to move out with at least one of us having a job lined up.


-we like living in a nice house, and don't mind being on the outskirts of a city; we actually prefer it. Probably looking at homes in the $500-upper $600s. What are some of the areas that we should look at on our trip? Brighton seems to pop up on our radar often.

-our vacations typically involve driving to the mountains for a week and renting a cabin to take in nature; I'm assuming there are areas like this within a few hours of Denver?

-traffic...its gotten very bad in Orlando; much worse than when I moved here almost 2 decades ago. Are there any areas that should be avoided due to really bad traffic?

-clear skies. We have taken a real liking to amateur astronomy over the last year. Are there any areas that tend to have dark skies (minimal light pollution)?

-bugs & dangerous animals. FL has bugs. Everywhere. What is the bug situation like in CO? Are mosquitos a problem? Also, we take our 2 Pekingese dogs everywhere. They go on hiking/walks when we go, but have to use a lot of caution as gators and venomous snakes are everywhere here. What would be the biggest threats to them in CO?

-Ive read a lot of people say they feel isolated in the Denver area; can anyone elaborate on why this is?
I worked in Colorado for about four years back in the late 90s until 2002 when I was forced to move to Florida. I did not want to leave Colorado. I was a mountain runner in my prime back in 2002. I worked as an engineer in Colorado. I started out with summer internships in Golden then moved to Colorado from Arizona. I worked in Boulder, Westminster( Northwest Denver almost by Boulder), Lo Do off Speer Blvd (downtown - central area), and the Denver Tech Center (Englewood or South Denver). I started out as an entry-level engineer and rapidly worked up to a management position in only about 3 years during the "dot com" era of the late 90s to early 2000s.

Mountain running was my ultimate lifestyle. I ran up Mt. Sanitas in Boulder hundreds of times in the years I was in Colorado. I could run up Longs Peak to over 14,000 feet from the Ranger Station via the "Keyhole Route" in less than three hours with a heavy backpack. I could do the round trip in about 5.5 hours. I ran the Bolder Boulder 10K and was in the very early waves many times. I often played rec center basketball at the CU Boulder campus. A lot of guys hated guarding me because I ran too much in the fast break. My VO2 max was at its highest in my late 20s to early 30s. I entered mountain races and loved the scenery, fresh air, steep mountains, and numerous trails in the midst of marmots, mountain goats, and the occasional Rocky Mountain Bighorn. I was euphoric on the steep mountainsides and summits.

But it all ended in 2002. The problem was the job market. Every job I had in Colorado had major "corporate politics". The pattern was that I would start a new job and find many in-team and inter-team conflicts for a wide variety of reasons. So, I would typically quit after about a year and get a major raise and promotion. In the late 1990s there was a shortage of engineers in Colorado, so I moved up the corporate ladder very rapidly. But each new job was awful in one way or another. I would quit one job leaving problems behind and find a whole new set of problems on the new job.

Then the stock market crashed in 2000. The dot coms started going out of business. I was at a startup that laid off half the company in 2000 and half of the remainder in 2001. By 2002 the company closed. The 911 attack also shut down airports and led to many hiring freezes which affected Colorado. By late 2001 the job market was absolutely horrible. I applied for one job in Longmont, CO (about 20 NE of Boulder) that had thousands of applicants. I managed to get the interview but not the job. I applied for a mobile test job in Boulder and was "hired" with 2 out of 150 applicants. But just when they were going to add me, the company went on a hiring freeze. There were many layoffs and some companies shut down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnJzct7h3Dk

By the spring of 2002 I was forced to do manual labor jobs at entry level while applying for jobs mostly out-of-state. There was nothing in Boulder or Denver for a good job prospect. I went from being a high-paid engineering manager in 2001 to a construction worker at minimum wage in Denver by 2002. It was awful. The contruction labor was brutally difficult. At least I was in shape - LOL.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wczkA_cULYk

Meanwhile, the job market in Florida was booming. There was a lot of hiring. I interviewed for a job by phone and moved to Florida in the late spring of 2002. I was happy to finally find a job, but as I left on I-70 and got closer to Kansas, I saw the summit of Longs Peak fade away and disappear. I got REALLY DEPRESSED when it finally disappeared.

I love Colorado, but as an older engineer I just don't trust the job market. I finally got a chance to leave Florida and could have gone back to Colorado. But I moved back to my home state of Phoenix.

Honestly, I don't think the job market is going to be stable for your field in the long run of 10-20 years. If you really want to stay in Denver long-term, I would aim on earning some type of "in-demand" certification of master's degree for which the skills are in severe shortage. In 2002, one of the few skills in demand was cybersecurity. If I had that background, I could have actually gotten a job in Colorado Springs that year. The very few who did got to stay in Colorado.

Check these websites: dice.com, indeed.com.

Check the comments on glassdoor for anonymous comments on the companies in Denver/Boulder.

Honestly, it looks like you need another master's degree. If you earned an MS in control systems, regulatory affairs, or 3-D printing you may be able to wing the next recession. There has been one every ten years or so in Denver/Boulder. If I were in Colorado, I would keep giving nervous glances to the CFO's office and wonder what they are talking about behind-the-scenes. The layoffs of the early 2000s wrecked many families in Colorado. I remember the crying and heartbreak when announcements came - especially for parents and those with a mortgage.

A better area would be Austin/San Antonio in TX or Chandler/Gilbert in Phoenix for homes and family stability. Phoenix is very close to the major "snow-capped" mountains near Flagstaff (2.5 hours) or the Mogollon Rim (90 min). Tucson is at the base of Mt. Lemmon which gets snow in the winter. The job market is more stable in Phoenix or Austin/San Antonio. Denver just makes me leery.
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Old 04-01-2018, 09:42 AM
 
Location: Aurora, CO
8,595 posts, read 14,778,113 times
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There's no sense arguing with rtloucks. I've busted out the same data points and he/she keeps making the silly and easily debunked assertion that winters here are comparable to the Upper Midwest. They're not. Average highs in the Twin Cities in December, January, and February are about 20 degrees colder than Denver.

Of all the places with a true 4-season climate (meaning cold, snowy winters) Denver is one of the mildest.
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Old 04-01-2018, 09:44 AM
 
Location: Aurora, CO
8,595 posts, read 14,778,113 times
Reputation: 15346
Quote:
Originally Posted by grad_student200 View Post
Denver just makes me leery.
You haven't lived here in almost 20 years. Your anecdotes are completely irrelevant. To pretend like Denver hasn't changed at all since you left is asinine.

Last edited by bluescreen73; 04-01-2018 at 10:33 AM..
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Old 04-01-2018, 11:18 AM
 
Location: Albuquerque
1,314 posts, read 2,004,600 times
Reputation: 1644
Quote:
Originally Posted by davebarnes View Post
Poor, neglected Cheyenne, WY.
What about Albuquerque?
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Old 04-01-2018, 01:55 PM
 
Location: 0.83 Atmospheres
11,477 posts, read 11,464,766 times
Reputation: 11976
Quote:
Originally Posted by grad_student200 View Post
I worked in Colorado for about four years back in the late 90s until 2002 when I was forced to move to Florida. .....
I’m just not sure how you compare the economy here 20 years ago to the economy of today. This city has undergone massive economic growth and change since you left.
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Old 04-02-2018, 01:31 PM
 
Location: Frederick, CO
401 posts, read 483,255 times
Reputation: 410
Back on the topic of places to check out in your price range


I would consider checking out the following while you are here visiting

South Side

Parker
Castle Rock
Highlands Ranch

Mid Point

Stapleton
Sloan's Lake Area
Berkeley

North

Broomfield
North Thornton
Lafayette
Longmont


Ft Collins Area

Loveland

I don't know enough about Colorado Springs to direct you there.
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Old 04-09-2018, 02:08 AM
 
11 posts, read 10,009 times
Reputation: 22
Well, vacation in not reality. But, there are nice places here, Golden, Colorado is great for trails, coffee, river through the town is beautiful. History of the town is great, just a well rounded safe town to walk around in, at any time of day. It is impressive, and less busy than Boulder. The school of Mines is in town, engineer university adds a unique flavor. Engineer days is a fun time, they blow up fire works and celebrate. Lookout mountain is just 5 minutes away and provides a beautiful view of the city. Amazing spot, and not mentioned. They have grate summer festivals, arts, and well anything you might like. Even white river kayaking, and climbing. It would be a waste not to visit and feel out Golden.
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Old 04-14-2018, 03:54 AM
 
5 posts, read 5,042 times
Reputation: 22
I think we'll add Golden to our itinerary also.
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