You cannot buy direct I know that, and it is gated pretty well. It is our Chocolate factory in a way. Funny thing is my name is Charles/Charlie.....too bad the owner doesn't tell me he's giving the factory to me....
The grass is greener, get the F out of your home state thread
- Thread starter ejay
- Start date
To the bottom of Davy Jones locker with my gear. My loss. I shouldn't have had it all on that boat.
In summary, move anywhere east of the Washington, Oregon, California borders and there's probably a gun or ammo factory located in the state if you stay west of the Mississippi river. If you move to Missouri, they sell really big fireworks there year round. That's were we go to get ours for the 4th of July.
Hell yeah we do. Fireworks Supermarket is 10 mins from my house, Fiocchi ammo plant is 15 mins away, Northrop Grumman Lake City ammo plant is just east of Kansas City MO, Black Rain Ordnance is an hour away. Just off the top of my head. We like guns, and explosives.
I'm still pretty new to Wyoming, but it certainly seems a bastion of Conservative values and individuality.
Job market is... not sure. lol I'm in the FedGov, so I never really looked in the private sector (though I'm getting a few e-mails every day from Indeed and LinkedIn about environmental/geologic positions but I feel underqualified for them).
Housing in Douglas is a bit tough - might be easier for you looking for something more than a single bedroom like me since I'm single with no dependents. Casper looks really nice, but the commute on I-25 to Douglas in a 2dr TJ isn't the best. Especially with winter coming and the terrible condition that road generally is in in the winter. Lots more housing options in Casper than here.
Outdoor stuff seems pretty good - still too early for me to get a resident fishing license. Bow season just started up and we're wearing high viz vests when we inspect wells now just in case. Made it out to Devil's Tower and Ayers Natural Bridge. Looking to hit up Rushmore in the near future when the weather starts to cool off for the fall.
Job market is... not sure. lol I'm in the FedGov, so I never really looked in the private sector (though I'm getting a few e-mails every day from Indeed and LinkedIn about environmental/geologic positions but I feel underqualified for them).
Housing in Douglas is a bit tough - might be easier for you looking for something more than a single bedroom like me since I'm single with no dependents. Casper looks really nice, but the commute on I-25 to Douglas in a 2dr TJ isn't the best. Especially with winter coming and the terrible condition that road generally is in in the winter. Lots more housing options in Casper than here.
Outdoor stuff seems pretty good - still too early for me to get a resident fishing license. Bow season just started up and we're wearing high viz vests when we inspect wells now just in case. Made it out to Devil's Tower and Ayers Natural Bridge. Looking to hit up Rushmore in the near future when the weather starts to cool off for the fall.
I work the Thunder Basin National Grassland. Lots of wells drilled on Federally owned land, and the Forest Service manages it, including inspecting those wells. There are two of us for about 850 square miles.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/wps/portal/...vid=091000000000000&ttype=main&cid=FSE_003853
Sounds like a dream job.I work the Thunder Basin National Grassland. Lots of wells drilled on Federally owned land, and the Forest Service manages it, including inspecting those wells. There are two of us for about 850 square miles.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/wps/portal/...vid=091000000000000&ttype=main&cid=FSE_003853
It's pretty great.
Get to pretty much pick and choose where I drive that day to inspect wells - a LOT more paperwork than I had anticipated. Sometimes put over 400mi on the truck in a single 10hr shift. Oh yeah - I get to work 4-10hr shifts and have a 3-day weekend every weekend. Also get to work with operators on soil samples for spills, permitting, and other stuff.
Most interesting portion has been an operator that I witnessed soil sampling for after a release from one of their tanks. 3rd party comes in and does the sampling and it's sent to a lab in a sealed container.
We got the sample report back from the contractor and I noticed at the end that they indicated the container arrived without the custody seals intact. Give you three guesses as to who delivered the sample to the lab (it was the operator not the contractor since the operator was going to be in the area anyway - normally the contractor delivers it).
"Coincidentally", the samples all tested lower than the requirements for cleanup despite Photoionization Detector readings showing significant amounts of VOCs, etc.
Show my supervisor and he's like, "Well, isn't THAT interesting" - so we made them re-sample the site. Operator supervisor decides he needs to come up from Colorado (almost a 5 hour drive) to witness with his employee (the same one who hand-delivered the samples to the lab previously).
Next report comes back and what do you know, two of the samples were far above the threshold despite testing below the previous sampling - as well as having almost a month of extra time to photo-degrade and "burn off".
So, yeah - can be interesting sometimes.
Currently in the works for a permanent position as this one is just Seasonal (though I'm funded through the 17th of January). My paperwork has been signed off by the District Ranger and the Forest Supervisor, so it's just getting HR to accept the classification for the position description for me. Hopefully get that all sorted within the next month or so. This position is a GS-5 and I might get the permanent as a GS-7. I'd love that!
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It's a GS 5/7/9 position with a promotion potential of GS9. There's also a GS-11 Physical Scientist position that's currently unfilled and probably won't be for the forseeable future, so if it's still authorized in the future, I might apply for it.
You feds and your GS stuff. 
My wife works in the land of acronyms and paperwork too. She's a GS-400 or something teleworking out of DC. She's teleworked for almost 20 years, so she's decades ahead of the Covid newbies.
So people should remember teleworking may be an option that frees you from higher priced states.
My wife works in the land of acronyms and paperwork too. She's a GS-400 or something teleworking out of DC. She's teleworked for almost 20 years, so she's decades ahead of the Covid newbies.
So people should remember teleworking may be an option that frees you from higher priced states.
Hey OP,
I grew up not far from you down in L.A. near the coast. I had a typical house for that area (4bd/2ba 1,800 sf ranch) and could go to the beach, mountains, desert, major concert, or professional sporting event on any given day. Things were good but I started thinking maybe there was more out there, especially when the youngins' got to school age. I planned my move for 3 years and then sold my house at the peak before the crash. I took that money to a luxury burb in the South and got a 3-level, 6bd/5ba 5,000+sf colonial for about 60% of the cost of my previous house. I thought of it as a mansion but there it was just like all the others throughout the city. There was a community lake, swim/tennis club as well as all of the entertainment, amenities, and shopping you could want. The free public school bus picked up the kids outside the front door and took them to the top performing public schools nearby. Gas, food, and utilities were all cheaper and professional wages were within maybe 10% of L.A. It seemed everybody had the disposable income and time to enjoy lavish vacations, lake/beach homes, and nice cars and toys. I truly wondered why I didn't make the change years earlier (though the wheeling spots are nowhere near as numerous or nice as they are in the West) ...
...then the first level HVAC unit needed replacement, then the second level and then the third. Next thing I knew it the roof needed replacement on this monster house. One day I'm washing the windows and noticed my low-E double-hung windows and 10-foot diameter palladium window were starting to rot. Come to think of it, everything that wasn't brick on that home started rotting and needed replacement, including the large wood garage door. Oops, that leaky shower pan in the master bath requires enough work so may as well gut the room and rebuild it. Oh, those solid plank wood flooring throughout is nice until it needs refinishing. Aaah, that recalled LP siding on the upper rear part of the house is starting to flake and the blue poly water house connection just popped. More stuff to repair. Oh yeah, there is both a city and county property tax and no Prop 13 to keep it from dramatically increasing from year to year.
The above may sound extreme, but all the neighbors were all facing the same issues. The heat, humidity, rain and cold were just brutal on houses.
Next thing I know the traffic is getting so bad I was thinking I was back in L.A. It was bumper-to-bumper. Aaah, snow was such fun until the city shutdown for a week due to the lack of equipment to clear. Waking up to temps in the teens and scraping the windshield was no fun. Golf ball-sized hail was a hoot as was running to the basement when the tornado sirens started wailing.
After 10 years it got to me; 50-inches plus annual rain, frozen rain, stifling heat/humidity, and feeling like a rat in a maze (tree cover is so dense that it required going in a taller building to see out to the horizon). I realized that I valued the moderate temperatures; low rainfall; proximity to the beach, mountains, and desert; and smaller, easier to maintain homes back in California so I moved back. I did choose to move north of the traffic and congestion of L.A. and feel that I have definitely found the sweet spot.
I guess the point to this long rambling post is that the grass may start out greener forever, or in my case, about 8 years. I don't regret the move one bit and truly enjoyed it for several years but I am so glad to be back and can't see leaving again. I would suggest moving slowly and spending the time to identify those qualities you are looking for in your daily life. Good luck!
I grew up not far from you down in L.A. near the coast. I had a typical house for that area (4bd/2ba 1,800 sf ranch) and could go to the beach, mountains, desert, major concert, or professional sporting event on any given day. Things were good but I started thinking maybe there was more out there, especially when the youngins' got to school age. I planned my move for 3 years and then sold my house at the peak before the crash. I took that money to a luxury burb in the South and got a 3-level, 6bd/5ba 5,000+sf colonial for about 60% of the cost of my previous house. I thought of it as a mansion but there it was just like all the others throughout the city. There was a community lake, swim/tennis club as well as all of the entertainment, amenities, and shopping you could want. The free public school bus picked up the kids outside the front door and took them to the top performing public schools nearby. Gas, food, and utilities were all cheaper and professional wages were within maybe 10% of L.A. It seemed everybody had the disposable income and time to enjoy lavish vacations, lake/beach homes, and nice cars and toys. I truly wondered why I didn't make the change years earlier (though the wheeling spots are nowhere near as numerous or nice as they are in the West) ...
...then the first level HVAC unit needed replacement, then the second level and then the third. Next thing I knew it the roof needed replacement on this monster house. One day I'm washing the windows and noticed my low-E double-hung windows and 10-foot diameter palladium window were starting to rot. Come to think of it, everything that wasn't brick on that home started rotting and needed replacement, including the large wood garage door. Oops, that leaky shower pan in the master bath requires enough work so may as well gut the room and rebuild it. Oh, those solid plank wood flooring throughout is nice until it needs refinishing. Aaah, that recalled LP siding on the upper rear part of the house is starting to flake and the blue poly water house connection just popped. More stuff to repair. Oh yeah, there is both a city and county property tax and no Prop 13 to keep it from dramatically increasing from year to year.
The above may sound extreme, but all the neighbors were all facing the same issues. The heat, humidity, rain and cold were just brutal on houses.
Next thing I know the traffic is getting so bad I was thinking I was back in L.A. It was bumper-to-bumper. Aaah, snow was such fun until the city shutdown for a week due to the lack of equipment to clear. Waking up to temps in the teens and scraping the windshield was no fun. Golf ball-sized hail was a hoot as was running to the basement when the tornado sirens started wailing.
After 10 years it got to me; 50-inches plus annual rain, frozen rain, stifling heat/humidity, and feeling like a rat in a maze (tree cover is so dense that it required going in a taller building to see out to the horizon). I realized that I valued the moderate temperatures; low rainfall; proximity to the beach, mountains, and desert; and smaller, easier to maintain homes back in California so I moved back. I did choose to move north of the traffic and congestion of L.A. and feel that I have definitely found the sweet spot.
I guess the point to this long rambling post is that the grass may start out greener forever, or in my case, about 8 years. I don't regret the move one bit and truly enjoyed it for several years but I am so glad to be back and can't see leaving again. I would suggest moving slowly and spending the time to identify those qualities you are looking for in your daily life. Good luck!
After that first paragraph I thought it was going to turn into an opioid addiction story.
The weather can be nice here. I live in a rental built in 58. It's always been a rental since it was new so it's abused. Before we had kids, my wife and I had a good about of money saved up to buy a house. We pre-qualified and put offers in on several houses for asking with 25% down with a formal counter request. Most of the time we didn't even get a phone call back. Lots of people were getting paid off from Sandy and moving out here so we couldn't compete with cash offers above asking. Now it's investment groups buying up with cash. They don't even require inspection. Shoot, a two bed one bath down the road for me built in 56 sold for close to 800k.
I'm no stranger to rot and wear/tear especially considering my landlord is a cheapskate. Did I mention no insulation, original windows, and just window air conditioners? It was 118 last weekend and the beaches were closed. Winter isn't any better. The roof is always leaking from somewhere when it rains. If it's not the electricity bill in the summer it's the gas bill in the winter. I've gone above and beyond repairs most of which on my own dime which included three months of prep and exterior paint. I've got a giant tree pushing the raised foundation of the house. Winter comes and some doors are hard to close or don't close. Summer, it's the other doors that were fine during the winter. Not looking for sympathy. I am just saying that I can empathize to some degree. No hail but we do freeze and have to scrape ice off the windows of the cars a couple of weeks in the winter.
The grass is always greener. If I had moved to Oregon when I was trying to lateral some fifteen years ago I would have regretted that this week, for sure. Now it seems that I just want to remove my family from crazy California politics. We have slowly come to realize (my wife and I) that if we ever want to buy a house, actually retire some day, and have extra money for the kids, we can't do it here in CA. Sacrifices will have to be made. I've no doubt I'll miss the weather among other things. We feel that this State is a sinking ship. (NY is in the same boat -pun-) It really is getting to be a fascist environment run by those who claim to be anti-fascists.
Steer me clear of home owners associations, mello-roos, overbearing City, County, and State regulation and taxes, and places where it takes two years and ten Planning Commission meetings just to pull a permit to remove a dead tree on your own property. I'll live in a shack in the woods and feed my family squirrel meat to get that at this point.
And when it's all over, and the fake oaisis of California has fallen into the ocean, I'll probably wish that I could move back. I can't hate it. I grew up here. But, like so many television programs of my youth, it's been stolen and re-imagined into someones nightmare to make a dollar and feed you propaganda in the process.
All other things being equal, I'd much rather pay more to maintain a house than pay more taxes for the socialists to give away to illegals and other ne'er do wells. At least the money goes to someone who is actually working for it. This house here in Florida was built in 1963, the rooms are on the small side but its otherwise a great house. We're planning a small addition next year to make the master bedroom an acceptable size. Being an older, blue collar neighborhood, there's no damn HOAs to deal with, I can park an RV on *MY* property without hassle. Building department SEEMS to be fairly reasonable to deal with - the complete opposite of Commiefornia where I actually had to call the state in on the crooked little local county Nazis. They were hopping mad but couldn't do anything about it!
The wife and I lived in San Francisco in the late 90s. She said about the same thing then, we are never going to be able to own a home, live comfortably, and have kids in the Bay Area. So we left, and she was right.
Two decades later we have the same conversation about leaving Oregon. We'd like to live some place more balanced, where Conservatives are on the right and Liberals are on the left. Unlike Oregon where the political spectrum seems to have Liberals on the right and full on Marxists/Communists on the left.