Off To California! · 3:19am Sep 2nd, 2016
So, I've spent the last three months unemployed. An undesirable state, to be sure!
Don't think of it as directionless poverty. Think of it as emulating your Great and Powerful role model!
But all of that has changed now! For I received a job offer. A job offer not on this eastest of coasts, but in the strange and mysterious land of San Francisco, California! Which means that now I must go, to seek my fortune in the west!
Truly, it shall be a grand journey across this—
Oh.
Okay, so maybe moving across the country has a few challenges. And even assuming I don't get frostbite or run out of bullets, settling in in SF and starting a new job is going to be hard. So I'm afraid most of my writing projects will be on hold for a few weeks until I get settled in and into the regular flow of things.
But, I don't want to leave you completely bereft, so to get this little break off to a good start, tomorrow I'm going to post up an Around the World in 81 Days special double update! A story about travel I will now be traveling during.
Hopefully you'll enjoy your stay over here on the Left Coast.
Just remember that Oregon is full of Californian-eating bears and it will all be alright.
Nicely done and best of luck. As someone who has moved to a new city myself just recently, I wish you luck. I really hope you get some with the housing situation, as from what I've read, rent there seems to be somewhere between astronomical and utterly insane.
Still, hope all goes well!
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Are you trying to keep me from going to Oregon? What are you hiding up there?
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Trees, mostly.
And the bones of a million Californians who did not heed the signs.
I mean, why else would so many come to Oregon and never go back?
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Thanks, man. And yeah, the rent situation in SF has me a bit worried. One of my coworkers advised me that getting a decent non-studio apartment in the city can cost as much as $4,000 a month. Naturally, I started looking for studio apartments. They start at $1,900. For a tiny room.
I'm reeeeaallly thinking we should try to live out in the suburbs and I'll just have an hour-long commute, but that plan has some other difficulties. We'll see.
Just remember the San Francisco rule of apartment descriptions:
Running water - Broken faucets
Riverview - Window facing to the apartment with the broken faucets
Gated Parking - A private place for criminals to strip your car
Pet Friendly - Last owner had a cat... or twelve
Dog Park - Layers of dog poo on every sidewalk within ten blocks
Controlled Access - Your key will not let you into the building unless you know the Secret Mystic Wriggle and Poke
Spacious Closets - Able to hold a shirt
In Unit Washer and Dryer - Sink and clothsline
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Welcome to "The Bay Area is a poorly-designed seething mass of humanity"!
I hope you like your car, because you'll become well-acquainted with it.
Though there's always BART.
4186649 One of my uncles lived in California long enough that he got a pilot's license and flew the dozen or two miles to work because it took less time than driving (not to mention being way less stressful). I don't know if he was in the San Francisco area though.
Great to hear Jaxie! Congrats! A big change certainly, but an exciting one.
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...Because Oregon is, to put it simply, better?
Congratulations, and good luck!
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Shh! Don't tell them!
Good luck! May you find the work and accommodations you need, and may the pinecones be kept from your door!
Well, future welcome to Cali. I live in San Diego, but have spent plenty of time up north when I was a kid. It's a nice place to be.
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I MEAN
UH
HAVE FUN IN CALIFORNIA IT'S GREAT
*coughs*
Good luck. I've been unemployed for 5 years and counting. I hope you escape this hell.
Best of luck. Here's hoping the move goes smoothly.
"Don't run out of bullets!" needs to become a standard phrase of well-wishing.
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Alternatively, I could just pay one hojillion dollars of rent per month.
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I'll be taking a car to work, but my girlfriend will have bigger transport problems. We don't have two vehicles and probably can't afford a second one right now, so once she finds work in the area, we'll have to sort out how she's going to get around.
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Very! It'll be a grand adventure.
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Sympathies, man. It's awful.
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Finger's crossed! Also, 81 Days Update x3 Get!
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Really, it's applicable in just about any context. Oregon Trail, Zombies, Survival...
I hope it all works out for you and that you have a safe journey
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I come to live with him and the first thing we do is jump into a car for a week-long car journey!
After the fancy dinner anyway~
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I think we'd better put a few more bears on the border, just in case.
4186648 Actually, I have relatives in Oregon. My father's sister moved up there about a century ago.
4187292 When I was deployed to Washington DC for a few weeks, they put us up in this nice neighborhood a reasonable distance from the office where I was working. Whole Foods about a block away, the subway about a block the other way, nice people, neat little shops, clean streets. I really missed Wal-Mart and Dillons for Stuff and Food, but it really wasn't all that bad, so I checked apartment prices.
My gross salary (before taxes) would not pay for a three-bedroom apartment, where back in Kansas, I'm paying $500 mo. for a 3-bedroom house with garage which will be paid off in ten years.
Needless to say, I'm still in Kansas.
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Holy shit.
I am jealous.
Don't let them scare you about California, you'll learn to love her for all her faults!
pinkie.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw2223-ba_dum_tis.gif
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4186649 Live in Oakland, near a BART station (12th or 19th street), ride BART in to work. If you're not working along Market, but working in SOMA instead, consider living around Milbrae or Burlingame and riding the Caltrain in to work instead.
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4186952 You can't fool me, I know what you're keeping up there! It's the dream of the 90s, right?
There was a time when I would occasionally offer the very odd opinion that we as a country might be better off if California just went ahead a sloughed off an sank into the murky depths. Lets just say I've done a 180 on that one, I've flipped, and there be no flop in the foreseeable future!
These days, I have been known to offer up the equally odd opinion that the secessionists in Texas should just go ahead and do it.
If you will pass through Oklahoma on your way, drop me a PM, and I'll treat you to whatever meal is appropriate!
EDIT: I have close family in both California and Texas.
Fourthed on BART, as a Bay Area expat. San Francisco is ridiculous as a housing market even if you've got a tech job, and completely off the freaking insanity scale if you don't. Mass transit is the way to go and it's a comparatively nice system.
Have a safe and problem-free move! Also, I live not far from Interstate 80 in the rough Truckee/Lake Tahoe area, so you will probably be passing by me if you're driving, and I've got a spare room and would be happy to put you and yours up for a night and show you around the area. The Sierra Nevada is just lovely , especially if you're not from a particularly mountainous region. (The North Bay, and the Marin Headlands north of the Golden Gate Bridge, is pretty too — and a lot closer to where you're settling — but for a half-day's drive this place is worth it.)
I totes expect to see you at BABSCon in April.
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I need to try going for BABS next year. We shall see.
Good luck on the move and I admit I am envious - SF is high on my 'places I want to live' (And I am in tech, whoo!) but probably still a year or three out.
Oh, also, if you two are passing through Columbus Ohio or it's not too far of a detour I'd totally take yall out to lunch or dinner on mine dime, cause yea! Lemme know.
Good luck. Uprooting everything has to be stressful, but being unemployed is not any fun either.