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Hey all, so I got back earlier this week from an awesome birthday trip to the Seattle area this past weekend for looking around more of the city and getting an idea this is something I really wanna do and move instead of doing Portland like i've wanted too for many years. Needless to say, I had a great time with beautiful weather when I arrived on the 27th!
I stayed with some friends of my sisters who live just a short walk away from Fremont street and 36th and wow, talk about a really cool community in that area! So much to go see and do with lots of unique and different people, all just within a few blocks of everything! There are some really cool breweries and eateries along that area, including Taco Truck and my friends husband working at the Borderlands Brewery that we visited each night and I got to take in the night life around that area and sample some good local brews, it was great! It was a short walk away to the really nice canal walk area where my sister used to work at a few years ago. Damn, I couldn't believe how many freaking bicycles you guys have zipping along all over the place in that area!
I got to go to the Gas Works park and that was really cool to visit and see the beautiful seattle skyline and man, all the lovely ladies walking and running around in that area, the bachelor in me was going crazy! I was falling in love with Seattle already!
And yes, Im WELL AWARE that your weather is mostly like this vs the great weather i had and I'm ok with that, I don't do well in heat and muggyness, I prefer moderate climate all around and having RELIABLE and constant overcast days in Seattle sure as hell beats the unreliable and unpredicable chaos that is Montana's weather system
Your city is so freaking huge and so much to see and do and experience! I was grinning the whole time when I visited the Pacific Mall and the surrounding area the next day trying to find the Gamestop to move my PS4 reservation! Wow, wow wow! This Montana boy just couldn't believe how many things I could go see, do, experience and all the wide variety of people walking around! I was amazed I wasn't scared or nervous or anxious about being in such a huge and busy part of Seattle, I was relishing it!!!
The geek in me was totally loving all the gaming and technology stores all over in the Seattle area and see both guys and girl nerds walking around in the Fremont street area, I just became more and more physced to move to Seattle as the more I saw!
And man, REAL skyscrapers! This montana boy was just loving everything about Seattle! This was only my 4th time ever being in Seattle and I just couldn't believe how much fun I was having and how comfortable I was being surrounded by all sorts of people in a busy enviroment, I just wanted to move to Seattle right then and now!
My friends were great hosts and being geeks themselves, they introduced me to whole bunch of people and took me to the very cool Cafe Mox place were all the serious card and board game gamers go! I'm much more a video gamer but I just really loved seeing that Seattle really catters to a lot more gamers of all types then Montana does, which is one of the big reasons I want to move. The more I research however, the more it seemed Seattle seem to have much more to offer then Portland and wow, it was right!!
On friday the day of my birthday, I had a face to face interview with a local tech company in the GeorgeTown area and thanks to the input from people here I was more prepared to look around and check out the area and I found it not bad at all. A bit run down being a more industral area but I rather liked it and my job interview went well but damn....it was freaking HOT and MUGGY in your city last weekend! This poor Montanan was doing everything he could to keep cool, but Seattle looked so beautiful in the sun! And yes, I'm aware that its not always like that and i'm ok with that, considering how there is to see and do!
I found this very tasty eatery off of 4th street prior to my job interview, Best fried rice and chicken i've ever had!
Growing up in Montana all my life in a town of 60k population, i've always been a bit nervous about big city traffic and especially all the horror stories I heard about Seattle's traffic had me worried. But amazingly, me and my little Civic coupe did awesome your big city traffic! I actually had fun zipping through tunnels, going through over passes, getting aggressive with my gas pedal and switching lanes on the fly, I was just amazed at how comfortable I felt driving around in Seattle! I had my trusty Note 2 with navigation on so I was able to find my way around and never got scared with the traffic! I even drove on I5 Friday evening as people were leaving work and the amount of traffic, on and off ramps and people zipping around didn't bother me in the least, I was rather enjoying myself!
On my last day I wanted to spend some time at the docks as that was my first experience in Seattle back in 1992 when my family went on the Victoria Clippers and went to Victoria for a week, the best vacation i've ever had as a kid! Again, Sunday the 30th was freaking HOOOOT and muggy in Seattle with all your moisture but it was so beautiful! The docks were just like a remember it but my friends told me you guys build a huge ferris wheel at the dock area, so I've course I had to check it out!
I heard horror stories about the vagrants and scetchy area around Pioneer Square, but I honestly wasn't scared or nervous at all! I had a few people walk up to me wanting money or food but I just firmly stated "No, sorry" and kept walking. The whole time I kept my shoulders straight, my arms at my side and walked around like I had a purpose and no one bothered me beyond that in downtown and dock area! I felt completely comfortable the entire time exploring Seattle, I just was so amazed I felt so relaxed and having a blast getting spend some real time in Seattle and the more I explored, the more I just wanted to move to your city right away!!
The Great Wheel is just soooo freaking beyond awesome! It was well worth the $15 to see your beautiful city up high! What an awesome edition to your seaside docks!
Man the flooding of memories walking along that dock area!! The sea air smelled soooo goood, its worth moving to Seattle vs Portland for that alone! And my big childhood dream and fasicnation with big ships and boats is also a big plus! Man, I was falling in love with Seattle left and right! And oh man, those beautiful asian women I see all over in Seattle! Damn, I am in paradise! I can't wait to get moved and that get into the dating scene!!
And I remember back in our trip when our little Dodge Minivan couldn't make it up these hills at a dead stop wtih traffic behind us an my dad had to signal everyone to get away from the tourist who's van didn't have the power to get up the hills lol! Thankfully, I Had no such issues with my civic and I handled the traffic just fine, much to my amazement!
In short, my researching/vacation/job interview/fun trip to Seattle as a total success! I am now totally focused on finding work in Seattle and move there instead of Portland now! I actually just had an interview the other day for the University of Washingtons College of Education for an new IT position and they have already contacted me for a follow up Skype interview next week! WOW! The UW's campus is so freaking huge and beautiful, it makes the the UM's here look freaking small and boring in comparison! I'm really excited about the position at UW working out vs the small IT company I wasn't really keen on but I figured I coudln't be picky trying to find work out of state. But just the thought I could be working here has me really excited! And oh man, all the ladies on campus as well!!
In the end, i've fallen in love with your city Seattle people! I know your weather is depressing at times, your people can be unapproachable/unfriendly due to this "Seattle Freeze" and that traffic can suck but all the pluses for me far outweight the negatives! I've got my interview next week for the UW IT position and i'm still applying for other jobs as backup but I simply can't wait to find the right job soon and get moved out there and start the next section of my life, meet new friends and spend time with fellow geeks and hopefully find that special love of my life! I'm coming Seattle and geeky single ladies, this Montanan is gonna rock you and to hell with the naysayers against Seattle and its people!
Whoa boy.. Your post reminds me of the way I felt the first time I was in Montana. Wow, look at all them pretty home on the range Montana girls, WOW, those mountains are so rugged and the scenery is beyond imagination.. I actually got to see grizzly bears and a mountain sheep walked up to me at Logan Pass. I hiked all over the Bitterroots and Glacier NP , 2 summers ago, in one of the most memorable trips of my life. Actually, I wouldn't mind relocating to Whitefish, MT and spending the rest of my life there if I thought I had a means to support myself there and could put up with the winters.
Anyhow, I will say Seattle is a very beautiful city and much more so than Portland. However, I disagree with you about having more things to do. I think Portland is a much more fun and entertaining city for people in the 20s-30s range and offers a lot of amenities to the geek crowd, but obviously is not an IT mecca like Seattle. However, Portland really shines on culture, art and community events, where as Seattle is more mainstream, corporate, business and professional-like, without the friendly neighborhood feel that Portland has in many parts. Portland has several unique, hip and vibrant neighborhoods like Hawthorne, Belmont, Brooklyn, Alberta, Albina all within close proximity that I wish Seattle could have, but Seattle has nothing of the sort.
Maybe, I am partial, as I grew up in Portland. I came to Seattle, because I am in the IT industry and it is a better place to be than Portland for this profession.
As far as the ladies, let me know how it goes. I find them to be cold, distant and closed, but there are certainly an abundance of single, attractive ladies in Seattle, compared to most other parts of the Northwest. Remember though, its quality over quantity. Montanan girls I think are the down-home, old-fashioned types. Yeah, its probably harder to meet one, but they would probably end up being better mate , then the professional, send me your resume, let's make an appointment to meet, type of women you have in Seattle. I actually find women in Portland to be a bit more colorful and vibrant and more charming. Seattle women just seem to be lacking something. They are not overly superficial which is good, but they are a little too reserved, serious and mainstream for my tastes. I actually enjoyed the personality of Montanan girls and found them somewhat charming.
The U of W campus is absolutely stunning! I would have loved to have gone to college there over Univeristy of Oregon, which is not even a serious college, but more like a giant booze/drug party, at least back in the 90s when I went. U of W is a serious college and people definitely have a mission who attend the school.
My husband grew up in the PDX area and would vehemently disagree that PDX offers more than Seattle. He has said that PDX has a long way before it has an inkling of vibrancy that Seattle has.
But c'mon OP... You're making Seattle sound/look too sexy now, LOL.
Life's all about perspective in the end, or so how I feel about. Montana is a great place to live, crappy place to make a living unless you bring a lot of money from out of state like a lot of people have in the past 20 years and driven our real estate pricing to hell or your I'm the right profession like doctor, lawyer, dentist etc... I'm no longer an active outdoors guy, I sick of hiking, skiing and camping and I never hunted, I'm becoming more geek and indoor oriented and I'm sick of the damn unreliable weather in this state, the cold and grey miserable winters with no snow and **** poor IT jobs. I also have no desire to raise a family and most of the women out here do so that puts my dating pool in a bad status so hence moving to a bigger city with more career oriented women who don't want families is a big reason I also want to relocate. The geek and tech industry is also a joke and we just don't have the population or events like Seattle does where I can make new friends comfortably and even meet geeky ladies, a big bonus.
In short, Montana has been good for me to be born, raised and start my career off, but all my friends have moved away, my sister is having kids in Yakima, my parents are moving to be with here, the dating scene here sucks, I hate the weather, I'm tired of being a field tech on the road seeing the same boring old mountains and scenery over and over all my life, I hate the career outlook here, I'm tired of my town and it's right wing politics and my university's BS and the entire towns obsession with our local football team that I never cared about in general.
I tried hard to find work in Portland but the job economy is a joke and getting into the IT industry as an out of stater is basically impossible. I've visited a few times and did like what I saw but I hated how lazy and undetermined the younger people are at doing anything, the relaxed and lack of caring attitude bugged me. I need to be around people who are career and goal oriented with life and work and not just wanna smoke weed while making micro brews in their basements and working part time a cafe. I wanted Portland to be my next home after thinking about it for a decade but after visiting and researching into it, Seattle's faster pace of life and career and people with motivation is more for me.
Needless to say, I'm no longer happy here in many ways and Seattle has everything I want and more to make me happyand thus, someone else can take my spot here, cause I'm done with Montana.
And yes, I've been to whitefish many, many times over the years with my current job and it's a great place to live, If you can afford it as its a big retirement community who brought money from out of state so its real expensive and you'd better like serious winters and snow for 6 months out of the year as well and get used to have to driving in bad road and weather conditions. My financial firm I do IT work for have a lot of rich clients with lots of out of state money, so they do well lol
It was so much fun reading about your trip to Seattle and seeing all the great pictures you took!
Terrific post!
Best of luck to you, and please keep us posted!
AT-AT28, I hope you enjoy Seattle.. If MOntana's scenery has made you bored, then you will probably get bored of Seattle's as well, then again, Montana is a big state with some boring places, I am sure, just as WA. You will find that Seattle has flaws, but from the sounds of you, I think you will enjoy Seattle. I am more right-wing, traditional, old-fashioned and growing up in the Northwest maybe has weighed on me, as the place has become more and more liberal. Portland was actually a pretty conservative city over a decade ago. However, Oregon and Washington are every bit as right-wing and conservative as Montana, but Portland and Seattle are the two exceptions. They are little islands in a redneck paradise. I actually liked the balance of living in Oregon, where the good ol boys were equally yoked with progressive, liberal types, which kept somewhat of an equilibrium in the state. The same can be said for Washington.
I use to be a gamer, but got bored of it and stop playing over the years. Probably because I grew sick of anything computer related after spending so many years developing software. I also grew up in the mountains of Oregon. I never got tired of hiking and now that I am stuck in front of a computer 8-12 hours a day for my work, I love to get any chance I can get to get outdoors and hike. Glacier NP was the most beautiful place I have ever seen, but I can imagine living your whole life in those small towns can weigh on you. Heck, I lived in Boise for a year and can understand how being in an isolated redneckish place can certainly drive you mad. I loved to p1ss people off by telling them I was a Duck and that they were the best team and watching them get mad as h*ll that I would say anything contrary to their beloved BSU Broncos. I never understood the obsession with a stupid sports team , where most of the players are not even from the area, rather imports from California or other places. Only one of the Broncos I think is even from Boise.
However, the one thing I am afraid that might get you is our perpetual winters here in the Northwest. You were complaining how you are sick of the cold and grey in MOntana. Well, be prepared for 6-9 months of gray and cool weather. If you are the type of person who likes to stay indoors, this should not be a problem. But, you will find that many in the Pacific Northwest, including myself, like to hike and do outdoor activities even when it is raining. We do not have any weather extremes in the Pac NW and have a beautiful 2-3 month summer. However, the long gray days have made many a person jump ship from the Northwest. Not much snow, which is great.. But when we do have the occasional large snow storm, it shuts down the city for 1-2 weeks and you don't want to be on the road.
I'm just giving you a sober view of Seattle. I think it is a great place.. Heck, if I was wealthier, maybe I would be happy to stay here. I've been getting burned out on the software profression which I have worked for 15+ years. I'm starting to think I don't want to be another rat in the cubicle commuting to Seattle/Bellevue every day. I grew up in the mountains of Oregon and love the outdoors, scenery and hate having a life where I cannot enjoy myself for more than 2 weeks of the year. This type of life is just not what I want anymore.
Seattle is a money town, so be sure to make a good deal of it, if you want to enjoy all those things the city has to offer.
You are right about Portland having its share of lazy people and stoners. However, along with them are free-thinkers and open-minded people. As much as you may respect the business and ambitious mindset of Seattle people, being a Montanan, you may also somewhat miss the openness or personal nature of people that I always found more comforting from Oregonians (and Montanans). Even Idaho people I could respect how they would share their mind. They smile a lot and will have a conversation. Everything in Seattle seems too business like, even in simple conversations. People are high-strung and pseudo-mellow. THey pretend to be open-minded, liberal , laid-back people, when in fact they are the opposite , but find a way to mask it with their demeanor. People also can be overly introverted, shy and passive aggressive. I find that many people (including men) are just too shy to carry on a long conversation. It is like if they haven't known you for a period of time, they fear you might try to antagonize them. Once again, being from Oregon, where people will sit back and blabber with a total stranger, I found it so strange.
I don't know how to explain it.
They do have a place called Silicone Forest in Hillsboro/Beaverton area that hosts a good number of IT companies. I don't know if you applied for any of the companies over there. Some of them I know are Intel, HP and Sage.
Anyhow, just remember, after you live here a while your perspectives may change. Like when I was in Montana the first time, I just was awestruck and felt it was heaven on earth, but talking to you and other natives I can see that it has its flaws which you don't see until you spent some time there. I think of it as the sensation of being a tourist versus a resident.
Last edited by RotseCherut; 07-05-2013 at 10:27 PM..
Seattle smaller hills and mountains is a nice change from being feel in the rockies like I have been and the gray weather doesn't rely bother me iit'd just the frigid cold with no snow that has gotten old over the decades due to climate change. I welcome a much milder gray winter thst Seattle has and the fact that is stays greener and warmer through the year appeals to me after dealing with Montana crappy and unreliable weather.
I applied to jobs within a 50 mile radius in Portland and the job outlook was still poor vs Seattle, I had over a dozen or more job applications a week easily an had 3 phone interviews aalready with a 4th coming up for the US. I had no such luck in Portland and I have no desire to take a huge financial risk and move without acquiring a job first and Portland was proving locals were having a hard time acquiring work without network connections. I have plans and goals I wanna accomplish for myself for this year and I simply got tired of Portland hording me back, Seattle on the other hand has been proving very lucrative and the gaming and geek scene is even bigger with PAX, comic cons, LAN parties, cos plays and bbrony conventions even, all of which I want very badly and can't get in Montana.
Yeah, Seattle will have it's issues and faults, like everything else in life but for my needs and dreams and personal taste, Seattle has garnered my attention and I'm going steam ahead with it. As far as the people are concerned, I'll deal with them in my own unique way, I'm good at breaking people's ice barriers and for those who I can't, especially the ladies, they arnt worth my time anyway.
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