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Why do you assume that I'm white? Your first paragraph seems to suggest that. Is that some kind of reverse psychology to suggest that white people shouldn't criticize other white people? And yes, I do get offended at statements directed at white people if someone is making fun of someone because of class, disability or other characteristics.
I'm not sure why I assumed you were white. I was certain that you had said that you were in your original statement, but I don't see it in there now so maybe I read it wrong or you edited it out after the fact. Are you?
By the way, a statement like:
Quote:
Originally Posted by zitsky
Why do Caucasians always assume that we smell better than everyone else?
I'm a car guy who likes to do tinkering under the hood. My car has passed emissions here in Colorado with no issue. It wouldn't even get tested in California due to visual inspections - you can't have anything under the hood that doesn't look stock or they won't test it. Doesn't even matter if it would pass the sniffer test, which my car would. It's much worse out there, trust me. And the logic behind some of it is mind boggling, and it's killing the car culture that I grew up loving out there. My street-driven car here in Denver would have to be a track-only car in CA. I know car enthusiasts are a minority though.
As long as you buy CARB exempt parts, you're ok (or if you car is pre-1975). Exempt parts will have the CARB sticker on them, which will pass visual inspection.
However, those parts might not be as much fun as non-exempt ones
Sounds like there is no perfect place. For years I have wanted to leave the bay area and move to Parker Colorado. My wife has here family there. There seems to be no jobs and I have allot of good things going for me here so it makes it hard to pull up stakes and hope for the best. Well as much as I would like to leave all the bad things about California i can list, i know there will be allot that i would miss. Well until the good job, nice home and good schools anchor can be replaced somewhere else I am stuck here. I guess i can't complain to muck the way things are these days. For all of you that left California was it a good move?
Sounds like there is no perfect place....for all of you that left California was it a good move?
There is indeed no perfect place. The key for me is traveling. As long as I can travel, I'm completely fine with having a nice, livable home base.
I'm pretty happy we moved from the south bay to Denver - I doubt we're ever moving back. I miss the abundance of cutting edge jobs, the ocean, the redwoods, San Francisco, and the range of types of food. But I don't miss the density, the cost of living (housing & taxes), the overall government mess including schools, the traffic (I rarely drive more than 15 minutes for anything anymore), the constant wealth status competition, and the "your job defines you as a person" mentality. Things I really dig about D-Town are the weather (love all four seasons w/low humidity and lots of sun), the mountains, the amount of family oriented 'stuff' within small radius (Zoo, Botanic Gardens, Science/Nature Museum, Children's Museum, Downtown Aquarium, etc), the city parks & gardens, the overall laid back & enjoy life attitude, that there's enough of a cool & fun startup scene to make it interesting (unlike say, Detroit or Indianapolis), and that DIA has 2 hour flights to lots of interesting places, including SFO & SJC
Sounds like there is no perfect place. For all of you that left California was it a good move?
For us, it was a very good move. Admittedly, I'm pretty spoiled, since I was able to take my Bay Area job with me and upgrade nearly every other aspect of our lives in the process. Still it's not perfect, and there's no guarantee my job will last forever this way. It was a calculated risk, but so far has worked out great. Moving here with no job and no real prospects would have been a lot more difficult and I doubt I would have done it. Who knows what I'll do if and when my job ever goes away but I don't like to dwell on that.
Treedonkey thank you for your post about moving to CO, it's always been an idea in my head since I was 10 yrs old now 30 yrs old to move to CO when I saw a T.V. show that explained the CO would be one of the safe states that wouldn’t eventually float away, you know that theory about all the states eventually detaching and moving away. Well anyway it always looked really beautiful there. I know little to nothing about CO past that and the Real World series of living in Denver, ha ha. So I was wondering what else you could tell me. I looked up Palmer Lake, CO where you live and didn’t find much right off the bat. It looks like a small town outside of Denver not with many jobs more for people to live and retire or maybe commute? Is this right? Also, I know CO springs is nice but it seems to a be similar?? I don’t have a house that I could sell and just buy a house outright with equity so that’s not a possibility especially with the economy any way. But I guess what I want to know, is what places seem to have more jobs but are still beautiful outdoorsy places that a youngish couple would enjoy out there. Or what else can you tell me about your area. Thanks for all the wonderful input.
Treedonkey thank you for your post about moving to CO, it's always been an idea in my head since I was 10 yrs old now 30 yrs old to move to CO when I saw a T.V. show that explained the CO would be one of the safe states that wouldn’t eventually float away, you know that theory about all the states eventually detaching and moving away. Well anyway it always looked really beautiful there. I know little to nothing about CO past that and the Real World series of living in Denver, ha ha. So I was wondering what else you could tell me. I looked up Palmer Lake, CO where you live and didn’t find much right off the bat. It looks like a small town outside of Denver not with many jobs more for people to live and retire or maybe commute? Is this right? Also, I know CO springs is nice but it seems to a be similar?? I don’t have a house that I could sell and just buy a house outright with equity so that’s not a possibility especially with the economy any way. But I guess what I want to know, is what places seem to have more jobs but are still beautiful outdoorsy places that a youngish couple would enjoy out there. Or what else can you tell me about your area. Thanks for all the wonderful input.
Yes Palmer Lake is very small and obscure and we hope to keep it that way. Not that newbies aren't welcome, it's just that we're not advertising...
You should probably post over in the Colorado forum and we can chat more.
Sounds like there is no perfect place. For years I have wanted to leave the bay area and move to Parker Colorado. My wife has here family there. There seems to be no jobs and I have allot of good things going for me here so it makes it hard to pull up stakes and hope for the best. Well as much as I would like to leave all the bad things about California i can list, i know there will be allot that i would miss. Well until the good job, nice home and good schools anchor can be replaced somewhere else I am stuck here. I guess i can't complain to muck the way things are these days. For all of you that left California was it a good move?
There are jobs in the area, just not in Parker. Most ppl that live there and Monument which is right next door work in Colorado Springs. Also if you have family in Parker it would be easy to live in the Springs and visit them. That would be my choice if I worked in the Springs. The daily drive can be crazy sometimes since the weather in Parker, Monument and Black Forest gets a lot more snow and ice whenever a system rolls through during the snow season which is anywhere from Sept through May. However if you have a more flexible schedule or telecommute it is a pretty cool area to live, just a bit more remote.
We moved to CO and lived there for several years along with some of our family who moved both to the Springs and Denver. My wife's sister and her husband say they plan to stay. My wife's father and his wife are thinking of returning to CA when the economy stabalizes a bit more. We didn't regret the time we spent there. It was a fun experience and a cool adventure. I really love the outdoors so enjoyed exploring throughout the Rockies. Its also good to see how ppl outside of CA live. I made some good friends while there.
And now that we are back in CA we are glad to be home. We did miss certain apsects of the West Coast. See earlier post.
I don't think it would be a bad thing for you to go there. You might even decide to stay for the long haul. But at the very least it could be a good adventure for your family. Just don't expect it to be perfect. Thats a fairly tale that doesn't exist anywhere. CO has its own set of advantages and disadvantages just like anywhere.
As long as you buy CARB exempt parts, you're ok (or if you car is pre-1975). Exempt parts will have the CARB sticker on them, which will pass visual inspection.
However, those parts might not be as much fun as non-exempt ones
Very few companies pay the huge costs to certify their parts as CARB exempt - there may be 3 parts total for my car. CARB stickers are a great revenue stream for CA, but have been more effective at killing the aftermarket than they have pollution. And even if you do have CARB exempt parts, there's no telling if it will do anything for you in the event a cop asks you to pop your hood. You're sure to be given a ticket anyway and sent to the "state ref" for an intense smog test "just in case". The system is completely inefficient and somewhat ineffective - and it's the car guys who end up losing out on the hobby they love.
It was one of the things I loved most about moving to Denver.
Sounds like there is no perfect place. For years I have wanted to leave the bay area and move to Parker Colorado. My wife has here family there. There seems to be no jobs and I have allot of good things going for me here so it makes it hard to pull up stakes and hope for the best. Well as much as I would like to leave all the bad things about California i can list, i know there will be allot that i would miss. Well until the good job, nice home and good schools anchor can be replaced somewhere else I am stuck here. I guess i can't complain to muck the way things are these days. For all of you that left California was it a good move?
It was a good move for us as well. I had been self employed for a few years before our move, so it made sense for us to move somewhere less expensive. We were lucky enough to sell back in '05 and took 5 years worth of equity with us - best decision we ever made in that sense, moving from a housing market that was about to crash to a market that has stayed relatively stable the past 4 years. We've found that our home has actually appreciated in value in that time, as where the home we sold in San Jose has depreciated about 40%. We consider ourselves extremely lucky.
We tried to find a place that was similar to the Bay Area in the ways we liked, and better in other ways, knowing full well there were going to be things we would miss. We feel Denver fits that bill for the most part. We enjoy the seasonal weather, the family feel, a really nice downtown vibe, and a nice spread out suburb layout that is still close enough to downtown to make everything accessible. It seems to be cleaner out here and more well kept. And as others have said, you get the feeling that people here are more about enjoying life than in NorCal. We live in a nice suburb out here, but we don't sense that same "keeping up with the Joneses" mentality nearly as much.
There definitely aren't as many tech jobs out here though, even now. I recently took on a full time job for the benefits and I now have to drive 32 miles one way, for much less pay than I'd likely get in NorCal for a similar job. The traffic isn't what I remember it to be in the Bay Area for a similar commute, but it's not that far off in rush hour. The positive aspect is that around here, traffic is usually always limited to rush hour (and winter weekends in the mountains for skiing).
The winters out here haven't been nearly as cold or snowy as we expected (except for that blizzard a few years back in Dec/Jan - and even that storm didn't produce anything close to east coast storms). It's a pretty mild climate here. But you might be disappointed with the random stormy summer afternoons. We do get over 300 sunny days out here, similar to San Diego. The difference, as we learned, is that 2/3 of those days could also see a few hours of rain or snow. The only thing consistent about the weather out here is the inconsistency.
The one thing we miss the most over all is family and friends. And that's ultimately what will likely bring us back to California, albeit outside of the Bay Area (Sacramento suburbs most likely). But if you're looking at areas around here close to Denver, I'd recommend checking out Highlands Ranch, Lone Tree, Parker, South Aurora, Castle Rock, and Littleton. Pretty much the whole southern metro area. We prefer the south eastern side due to its proximity to the I25 freeway, which runs up through the Denver Tech Center (the 2nd largest job center outside of downtown) and downtown Denver. The first of the three areas I mentioned will remind you a bit of California visually - tract homes galore, big box stores, and chain restaurants everywhere.
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