Moving to NH from NM

[our2jrts]

I grew up in Manchester, I moved away a year ago to Colorado because I didn't want my kids to be the 7th generation in my family to go to Central High School. My family needs to branch away from "home plate". We were looking at houses in NM when we settled on CO.

[DauntlessDan]

NM is DEEP BLUE I hate it, between the liberal judges offering get out of jail free cards, to the fact of how hard I have to work now just to try and scrape by I am done here.
Hell not to mention the nepotism, and corruption. I do NOT mind hard work, as for sever winters, we have severe droughts, lately some pretty rough wildfires, and hellish summers (not Arizona bad, but bad enough). So the way I see it weather is ever changing and just nature (no pun intended) of the beast.

I thought "hey a college degree will help" WRONG! I have been working on wrapping up my 3rd associates degree, in a futile attempt to get ahead in this damn town.
One in automotive technologies, glorified mechanic. No avail because here everybody's cousin a mechanic.
One in Environmental safety and health, glorified pencil pusher. No avail because the state shut down the program shortly after I finished.
One in integrated studies, glorified toilet paper.
All my attempts to try and further myself, to just guarantee a better shot than what I had for my kids has failed, and continues to fail because of NM politics.

I have never been to NH, simple honest answer I chose NH because of it's safety rating across the board; natural disasters, crime, etc.

Scorpiogre have you ever considered West Virginia?

[lady fern]

Never been to NM. Have seen a lot of the country but never traveled through there so I cannot give you a comparison. Although I'm a newcomer to the New England area, I can second what many have said about most of NH being on wells and septic. Look at southern NH for city water. Most of the population lives in the Manchester area so that might be your best bet.

I too come from an area where meth has become a big problem. First started hearing about it in the early 90's but then it was called "crystal" or "crank". New some kids in HS who were doing it pretty reguarly. Hope they got out of it. There it seemed to be the biggest problem in rural areas. Don't know why, maybe because it was cooked up in the hills and more readily available there or that these areas were more economically depressed and people thought that getting high would be good way out. Thought it was mostly young adults until I had a patient in his late 60's come in with his wife. Both were suffering from long term effects of meth.

Some ER nurses here told me that meth isn't such an issue here. Imagine the health care providers, police and maybe the schools would know best. I see some folks that look suspect when I go into town to Walmart, but nothing to the degree that I saw in my old state. We did look at a house in a small town south of Lebanon and were told by the realtor that some kids had recently come through and stripped all of the copper piping. This set off some alarms for me - that was how a lot of the meth heads got $ for their fix back in the day. Hopefully it was just kids being dumb. I don't know. They got caught though.

I've never seen Breaking Bad. I've had a ton of people tell me to watch it and that it's gotten all these awards but I just think it will make me angry. I don't see anything good about someone cooking meth no matter how pure their rat poison is just to pay for their cancer treatments. Every patient I have met who was hooked on the stuff was messed up and it was clear that they would never be right again. They all semed to be running around with MRSA as well. One young man who had quit told me a few months before he died of a bad infection that he had no longer found any joy in his life; that it was like all of the pleasure receptors in his brain had been burned out. He was a nice guy just went down a very dark path.

[GregW]

DauntlessDan - How is the job search progressing? Have you checked both the municipal and the private (Pennichuck Water Works serves Nashua) water works? Some municipalities also have operations at the other end of the pipe in their sanitation departments. You wife should look at places like the Elliot medical system in Manchester as well as smaller companies like Londonderry Family practice.

In any case do not expect “big city” pay rates unless you or your wife manages to get a job in Massachusetts. I have a friend that is a surgical technician in a Boston Hospital and her pay is nearly twice what she would get around southern NH. Just be warned.

The interesting part of this discussion is I am retiring soon and we are investigating relocating to New Mexico. We have visited a couple of time and looked at several towns. So far Socorro is at the top of the list because of the New Mexico Tech University. We also have thought about Albuquerque because of the nearby medical facilities. I have also been watching the weather in the mid Rio Grande valley and winter temperatures below freezing at dawn and over 50 in the afternoon without lasting snow seem a lot more livable than the wind off our private glacier.

What is your opinion of New Mexico as a retirement location?