Always on the go.

I've been here my whole life. Have moved away a few times, travelled a lot domestically and "nearby" countries, but always end up back here.

Funny thing is, I "travel well". Haven't been many places I didn't care for, even the real hell holes.

Been a few where I didn't care for their crowds or their politics, but that's only a consideration if you're planning to move there.

Chicago was a poor choice of place to move as a TDY for me, for example. Talk about a corrupt mess. Did that. Got out.

The food and people were great, though. Just couldn't pay me enough to live there now.

Not sure I've ever lived anywhere with real humidity for any length of time, either. Not my favorite thing. I tolerate it, but prefer the dry air of the high plains and west.

Always impressed by the vegetation y'all can grow in places where there's actually water, though. Driving in Virginia and Tennessee with the Interstate hacked through big deciduous forests is interesting to me. The number of bugs in those places is also surprising.

Far and away my favorite thing about going elsewhere is seeing the changes in climate and weather. Love weather. Even want to go see crazy Oklahoma tornadoes someday, just to see 'em. Places where it can rain longer than 24 hours also fascinate me. Just doesn't happen here.
 
My 35-year airline career had me domiciling in 9 cities. Big places like ORD and LAX, small places like PIA and CID. It was a real trip. Go where your heart takes you and enjoy the ride.
 
jesse said:
I moved a lot in my younger years (9 times, with 9 school switches, between kindergarten and 10th grade). I moved a few times trying to find myself in this world professionally. I've been in Nebraska now for 9 years. I would need a hell of a reason to move away from Nebraska. Just to the point in life now that I have too much here that would be too much work to rebuild elsewhere.
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I hear that. We really like it here in Kansas and it would take a lot to make us move. While we haven't been here long, we also bought a great property that we love and will allow us to one day fly a helicopter or STOL plane off our land. We'd have a hard time leaving here anytime soon, and we'd likely change careers before moving.
 
Was born in Bethesda but my parents lived in DC until I was about three or so. We moved to the new Levitt-created suburb of Belair at Bowie where I lived until I went off to college. Upon my grauduation from college I moved to Colorado and my parents moved to DC (I actually drove the rental truck with some of their stuff to their new place).

Colorado is where I learned to fly. Learned to appreciate density altitude and really had no problem understanding what was MSL and what was AGL as a result. I got a great job opportunity back at APG so I moved back to Baltimore 13 months later.

Worked at APG, flying out of 1W2 and then the aero club at APG for five years. Moved to NJ and played university administrator for a few years (never got around to flying up there). Moved back to Virginia and flew out of HEF, IAD, VKX, and CJR over the next 25 years.

Sometime this summer I'm taking up hopefully my last residence on an airpark in NC.
 
I've lived in OK for 33 years (my entire life). I've lived in the Tulsa metroplex (mainly Broken Arrow) for about 25 of those 33 years. I enjoy the NE Oklahoma area and have a lot of close family and friends in OK/TX. I wouldn't likely move more than a few hours away in any direction. I love to travel, and do a fair amount of traveling for work, so I get my fix. The wife certainly wouldn't go anywhere out of state due to having so many family members nearby. I can find something I like in just about every place I've been, but I always like going back home after being on the road for a week or two. Nothing wrong with moving around, but I have no issues with staying where I grew up despite being in the heart of Bible Belt which often creates a lot of religious/political nonsense.
 
[QUOTE="PrincessPilotNJ, ] I went to spring high school. Lived on Cypresswood. Then moved by Willowbrook mall, and then by the Galleria.[/QUOTE]

We moved to Houston in 1965 and moved to Denton in 1981. The place changed a lot in those years. The changes since then have been extreme. I went to Springs Woods high school, and the overall character of the area has taken a huge change from what it was at that time. The Sam Houston tollway wasn't even a though in those days. West Belt Road was the edge of town. In those days, Spring was in the middle of nowhere.
 
Duhhhhh.....depends on how much you make! We live north of baltimore. Very nice. Kevin plank , owner of under armour,does also but with a whole lot more money. Boston area is great! Again......duhhhhh, depends on your income. Marlboro , mass. Etc. Is nice and of course near the ocean is wonderful if one has the money. All depends on ones taste and income. Are you a professional pilot? Airline major or large corp, you should be able to live quite well near Boston or even in a nice part of it. I also agree about Houston, tex. Some areas are very nice !
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First 18 years in the Denver metro area.

2 years of college and my PPL in San Diego.

3 years of college in New Jersey. DenverPilot: Living there taught me that rainfall lasting 24 hours or more is overrated! LOL

19 years in the Bay Area as a result of getting my first job out of college at Apple. Still have a second home there. DenverPilot: Living there reminded me that rainfall lasting 24 hours or more is overrated! LOL

Moved back to Denver 11 years ago and here I am!
 
PrincessPilotNJ said:
Houston, in my opinion, is dirty. I have absolutely loved living in Jersey. New Yorkers taught me so much, and have pushed me to grow in my professional life. I will have to change my username lol.
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I won't disagree on that one. I spend a week or so each quarter in the Woodlands/Spring/Conroe, TX area. I feel like those areas are okay, but traffic is an absolute nightmare and the further south you go, the dirtier the city gets until you get to Galveston. I haven't spent much time west of the downtown Houston area though, so I can't say much about those areas. There's not much about Dallas or Houston that would make me want to live there on a permanent basis.
 
I've lived in NC since I was 7. I've lived in a couple of different apartments and houses but always in the Triangle area. The only exception was 4 years, 3 months on active duty in the Navy where I alternately lived in Norfolk or where ever my bunk traveled to.
 
I had this convo at the bar at the marina 1/2 mile direct distance from my house:

Him: You aint from around here, are you?
Me: Actually (pointing out the window) that's my house.
Him: You might live here, but you aint from around here.
Me: You're right, thanks for noticing.

I proceeded to pick up his bar tab and we've been friends for about 4 years now. He DID think he was insulting me, and I DID regard it as a compliment.

My personal favorite Texan statement: "That's just (fill in a state) humor. Nobody here gets it"
 
SoonerAviator said:
I won't disagree on that one. I spend a week or so each quarter in the Woodlands/Spring/Conroe, TX area. I feel like those areas are okay, but traffic is an absolute nightmare and the further south you go, the dirtier the city gets until you get to Galveston. I haven't spent much time west of the downtown Houston area though, so I can't say much about those areas. There's not much about Dallas or Houston that would make me want to live there on a permanent basis.
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When family from here moved there a little over a decade ago, Spring is the area they landed in also, attempting to maintain the lifestyle they had here in the Denver suburbs. Back then they were amazed at the incredibly low housing costs compared to here vs the absolute size of the houses. They also noticed that Houston gets "grungier" as you head into it from the north or east.

The McMansion thing in the Spring/Woodlands area was in full effect, and hadn't started here yet. Prices per square foot were between 1/2 and 1/3 of here, then. They bought "small" and it was a huge place with a massive swimming pool. Enormous. They had whole bedrooms that ended up acting as crap storage rooms.

Today the McMansion effect has caught up with Denver metro and we're listed as one of, if not the top, of the housing price scale. The typical house around here that's being built gives every human in an average four person household their own 1000 square feet of living space, not counting the garage or property. Which pretty much matches what they ended up with in northwest Houston many years ago, except the pricing.

They're back here and living in a small 70s house that's completely paid off similar to ours now. It's interesting watching the folks moving here and signing half a million dollars of their lives away or more. They all seem unhappy with working so hard in life to maintain their lifestyles (hell, I fell into that trap too!) but don't seem to be willing to buy smaller or to demand it of builders.

You should see the size of these things they're putting up, and how close together they are. It's amazing. The one thing Denver might be doing better is the "scrape off" behavior in the central city. We're losing the historical buildings and houses like crazy, but not pushing the desirable housing out to the burbs like say, Spring and the Woodlands represented in Houston back then.

A scrape off rebuild with a view of one of our central parks (Washington Park) and a lake in central Denver is now a $1.2M house, minimum. A friend who bought a 100 year old house in the "Wash Park" area a couple blocks up from that has over 200% appreciation in value in his house in a little over a decade, and he's sure that's the price someone would pay to bulldoze it and build a new house on the property. That 100 year old small brick house is worth about 3/4 of a million dollars and would sell easily in a week for that right now. He's trying to decide if he should sell it, pay off the mortgage, and have about a $350K house built out in the burbs and pay that mortgage off with the sale, also.

In Houston that kind of thing only happened on the edges and was all just new construction a decade or so ago. It just kept sprawling and sprawling. Getting from Spring to Galveston is a half a day trip on a bad traffic day. People don't realize how big and crowded the Houston Metro really is until they visit. You didn't take a job "across town", if you did that, you moved.

Too many people for my tastes. This cow town is headed that way, also.
 
Nate, I've always wondered why builders don't build more small patio homes, now that so many Baby Boomers are becoming empty nesters. We have such a home. It's a modest 3BR, 3BA, 3,000sf with a 2-car garage. Gated community. "Lock-and-leave," with a small yard and an HOA that handles yard work and snow removal. Love the home but not the surrounding area, but we can't find anything like it anywhere else in town. Seems like there would be a lot of demand for homes/neighborhoods like ours.
 
colojo said:
Nate, I've always wondered why builders don't build more small patio homes
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Money. They make a lot more on a McMansion than two small patio homes on the same land.
 
denverpilot said:
In Houston that kind of thing only happened on the edges and was all just new construction a decade or so ago. It just kept sprawling and sprawling. Getting from Spring to Galveston is a half a day trip on a bad traffic day. People don't realize how big and crowded the Houston Metro really is until they visit. You didn't take a job "across town", if you did that, you moved.

Too many people for my tastes. This cow town is headed that way, also.
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Absolutely the truth. Just like anything else in life: different strokes for different folks. I love being 20 minutes from downtown Tulsa, or 20 minutes from the pure countryside without a man-made structure in sight short of a barbed-wire fence. I like visiting DC/Houston/etc. but I prefer a much slower pace of life and easier access to non-citified entertainment like hunting/fishing. Housing prices in Houston are crazy in the Spring/Woodlands area, where my 1970 house would easily be worth $350K+, which is something like double what it's worth in Tulsa and triple what I paid for it. I'm just amazed at the difference in lifestyle can be in some of the places I visit. I feel like a poor person in DC where it seems that every other car on the beltway is a Mercedes or BMW, lol. Ah well, I guess I'll just stay a simple suburbanite/country boy. I don't mind being on 2/3 acre lot, but ideally we'll be on at least 5 acres later on in life. Finding that kind of space in a major urban environment is in the millions of dollars. Besides, if I have that much money to blow on a piece of land, it's going to be somewhere where I can put a runway on it!
 
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colojo said:
Nate, I've always wondered why builders don't build more small patio homes, now that so many Baby Boomers are becoming empty nesters. We have such a home. It's a modest 3BR, 3BA, 3,000sf with a 2-car garage. Gated community. "Lock-and-leave," with a small yard and an HOA that handles yard work and snow removal. Love the home but not the surrounding area, but we can't find anything like it anywhere else in town. Seems like there would be a lot of demand for homes/neighborhoods like ours.
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As Bflynn mentioned, there's a lot of margin in the up-selling of large luxury homes versus building the spec patio homes. Besides, a lot of empty-nesters end up buying larger houses than they had previously because they have amassed greater earnings or want to live in a nicer home than they previously had. Gotta keep up with the Jones'.
 
I've lived in eight states, and overseas twice (once each, southern and northern Japan; it's like two different countries). Currently in my 22nd town, the sixth residence that I've owned, and the 45th place I've lived. (Oh the joys of being a military brat! College was Town #14 at age 19.) Hope to make the stretch to retirement here by the Lake, main floor bedrooms and a walkout basement that I can also drive around to.

Even like my new airport, been there almost a month now. Flying lessons began in Oct '06, now basing out of my third field. Interestingly enough, the CTAFs have been an orderly progression: 122.7 first, then 122.8 and now 122.9, so it will be hard to relocate the plane again without messing that up. :p

Moving can be exciting. Travel is fun, but I've discovered since I graduated from college that the best way to travel is not to pack up everything you own, but just take a suitcase or two; then when you get home, you know where the grocery store is, which restaurants are good and how to find your way around town.
 
Lived here my entire life. Kinda like it.

Can't figure out how Boston is anyone's favorite city though. There's nothing historical about it now. It's pretty much like any other big city. I'd never been, so I thought I'd take my daughter there a couple of years ago and tour the historical sites, except no one there knew where any were. We found the cemetery where Paul Revere is buried, in the middle of the city, but there was no parking so I dropped her off to look around and circled the streets until she texted that she was ready to be picked up. Same thing trying to find the Adams house a short distance away. I asked several dozen people if they knew where it was and most had no idea what or who I was talking about.
 
Gerhardt said:
Can't figure out how Boston is anyone's favorite city though. There's nothing historical about it now. It's pretty much like any other big city. I'd never been, so I thought I'd take my daughter there a couple of years ago and tour the historical sites, except no one there knew where any were. We found the cemetery where Paul Revere is buried, in the middle of the city, but there was no parking so I dropped her off to look around and circled the streets until she texted that she was ready to be picked up. Same thing trying to find the Adams house a short distance away. I asked several dozen people if they knew where it was and most had no idea what or who I was talking about.
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I walked around Boston one day and there were many historical places. I could have spent another day or two. But I think the key was that I was on foot. Like many big cities it's not easy to find parking, especially if you are unfamiliar.
 
I walked the Freedom Trail in Boston several years ago and saw all kinds of historic places. It was quite fun.
 
orange said:
I think everybody does. ;) (Where one lives that is their hometown, no?)
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I think the term "hometown" is usually reserved for where people grew up or associate with a major part of their life. I didn't consider my college town as where my hometown was. If someone asked me "where's home?" or "what's you're hometown?", I didn't respond with the name of the college town I was currently living in. I can reply that I live in my hometown currently, but if I lived a mile to the west I wouldn't say it because I'd be technically in a different town. Semantics I suppose.
;)
 
orange said:
I think everybody does. ;) (Where one lives that is their hometown, no?)
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Look up the definition.

I'm back in the town I was born in. I only lived here for the first three years of my life, although I lived in the area longer. Now I'm back, but everyone else is gone.
 
Craig said:
[QUOTE="PrincessPilotNJ, ] I went to spring high school. Lived on Cypresswood. Then moved by Willowbrook mall, and then by the Galleria.
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We moved to Houston in 1965 and moved to Denton in 1981. The place changed a lot in those years. The changes since then have been extreme. I went to Springs Woods high school, and the overall character of the area has taken a huge change from what it was at that time. The Sam Houston tollway wasn't even a though in those days. West Belt Road was the edge of town. In those days, Spring was in the middle of nowhere.[/QUOTE]
Living in Conroe now, Moving to denton this summer!

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk
 
Hank S said:
Oh, you unwashed heathen! :p
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Now, now.

I get this all the time in Atlanta. "No, this is Atlanta, you're supposed to drink Coke!" What, like I'm supposed to change my preferences because I'm somewhere different? I look. If they don't sell Pepsi, I drink water. And thank goodness Pepsi is finally being sold in the airport there.
 
Moving is always an adjustment. Making new friends in a new city doesn't have to be hard. Usually start at work then branch out from there. Lived a few different places. Not only do I move often, with my flying schedule I am rarely home. Being a 26 yr old single guy, I will say South Jersey was probably my least favorite place to live. Moved over the river to Philly and haven't regretted it.
 
Yeah I left South Jersey many many years ago, and have no desire to live there. Really just lived there my HS years, folks are from there. Had to go back once for a couple years at McGuire but transferred as soon as I had a chance to. Miss the hoagies though! :D
 
Colorado has to be one of the most beautiful places on the planet. Come skiing at Breckenridge or Aspen Highlands. Just the views are breathtaking... Those mountain towns are cool old places with great bars and restaurants and lots of oldtime vibe. They are nice in the summer too.
 
The Cascades in Washington are beautiful too. Problem is they might slide into the Pacific.
 
Cascades shouldn't slide into the pacific, the Juan de Fuca plate is subducting under the North American Plate, and the Cascades are well inland on the NAP.
 
Gucci Pilot said:
Moving is always an adjustment. Making new friends in a new city doesn't have to be hard. Usually start at work then branch out from there. Lived a few different places. Not only do I move often, with my flying schedule I am rarely home. Being a 26 yr old single guy, I will say South Jersey was probably my least favorite place to live. Moved over the river to Philly and haven't regretted it.
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The reason New Yorkers are so ****ed off all the time is because the light at the end of their tunnel is New Jersey.

Moving and starting over is always hard. By the time you get good friends in an area, a lot of times you move again. My first job out of college was actually where I made the most friends the fastest. A lot of that had to do with what was really a special group of people, and all of us had moved from out of town. Plus, we were all single. That combination meant that we all ended up spending a lot of time together, both inside and outside of work.

When you're married and have kids, it gets even harder. We moved to Ohio right before our son was born and got to know basically nobody except our next door neighbor (who happened to be an absolutely wonderful woman). We're doing better here in Kansas, but still not done much socializing yet.
 
EdFred said:
Cascades shouldn't slide into the pacific, the Juan de Fuca plate is subducting under the North American Plate, and the Cascades are well inland on the NAP.
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I guess I should have put a smiley behind that. ;)
 
PrincessPilotNJ said:
Houston, in my opinion, is dirty..
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I've lived, worked, and/or spent a decent amount of time in almost every larger municipality in the contiguous 48. My least favorite towns---of all I've experienced---in terms of being dirty, hot, not having nearly enough infrastructure, etc., and having few if any redeeming qualities to help compensate for all the nastiness:

Houston and San Antonio.

I spent a lot of time those two towns in the late '90s. Had an office near Houston Hobby for a few years and...

...literally drove every square in of San Antonio looking at potential markets. Drove it for 10 days. Kept waiting to find the good part of town. It never came. It's the only town I've ever been in where I felt safer dead downtown (The River Walk) than in any other part of town.

Tuscon runs a close third.

And...

Nice satellite communities that are way out don't count towards the ambiance of "the city" because, IMO, those aren't "the city." Especially in those cities where the drive becomes 2+ during rush hour. The Woodlands, well north of Houston, comes to mind.
 
timwinters said:
Nice satellite communities that are way out don't count towards the ambiance of "the city" because, IMO, those aren't "the city." Especially in those cities where the drive becomes 2+ during rush hour. The Woodlands, well north of Houston, comes to mind.
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City goes quite a long ways north of The Woodlands nowadays. It's just a "northern suburb" now. KDWH is a neat little airport, pretty much surrounded by crap now. Like most of the satellite airports in cities always end up.
 
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