I'm done.
I've come to a point in my life, lacking a degree, lacking independent wealth, that I have to leave California.
Housing prices are too high.
Cost of living is too high.
Gas is too high.
Food is too high.
Sure, salaries are higher here.
Sure, its culturally the center of the internet world.
Sure, it's got more things to 'do' packed in 10 square miles than most states have at all, but I can't fucking afford to do them because I pay 400 dollars more a month for less space. Because my gas is consistently 50 cents more a gallon.
Because I'm struggling to find work. Every time the tech world hiccups, 10,000 degree'd tech workers flood the job market looking for any decent job and I just can't compete. I'm as smart as any one of them, but I don't have a degree to back that up and an employer will always take the guy with the AA over the guy without.
When I'm forced in to lower rung jobs where my coworkers are the willfully ignorant and illegal/Undocumented and these people actually -compete- with me for work... I've got to accept the truth.
I can not afford to stop working to go to school full time. I just can't. I don't get any breaks for being a married white man. I can't start part time, because the one job I can do and get paid decently for, requires me to be utterly flexible in my availability. Even online courses are problematic as I can't promise I will be available for the coursework.
I had in mind to move to Eugene Oregon. But I've examined the job market. It fucking stinks. It's worse than the bay area. Oregon as a whole is like a slice of California that realized California was too expensive. It has the same brain-dump problem the Bay Area has. Too many educated people, too few jobs and zero industry.
I'm now looking to move to Baton Rouge. It's got a robust job market supported by construction, logistics and trade. It's all financial, it's not all tech. While there's a university there, it's not a destination for every hippy liberal known to god. Which is sad, because I'm a hippy liberal. It's got plenty of industry and educational opportunities. I -can- go to school there. It's got my family. I've always wanted to be closer to them.
It's got the occasional hurricane, but BR is far enough inland to never really get smacked unless its big ass class 5's.
It's hot. I'll cope.
It's 'not' the bay area. That used to matter to me. It's not cosmopolitan and I may not debate economics with a random guy in Starbucks. That used to make me feel smart. It used to make feel like I was someone. But being someone in the bay area is like being another deposit in the septic tank. There are no standouts.
So yeah. Thats where I'm at.