I Haven't Mentioned This Here Yet
The idea of moving away from Eugene has been an idea that's been batted around between me Ximena for about a year, but for at least the last six months we've been seriously looking at the Twin Cities as place to move. X has a interest in prosthetic technology and there's very few schools in the country that offer a program in prosthetics. One of those places is Century College in White Bear Lake, a suburb of Saint Paul.
At this point we've been digging into job and apartment hunting in the TC. Yeah, unemployment seems high everywhere and the economy sucks, but a move like this would be tough no matter what the state of the economy.
When I moved from Minnesota to Eugene back in '93 I had no safety net, very few belongings, no job, no place to stay except for a motel room. Today things are a little more complicated and I'm inclined to plan this move a little more carefully.
Anyway, we hope to move in March or April of this upcoming year. My thinking is since I've worked in groundskeeping and on a golf course for thirteen years, my best bet for employment is getting work with a golf course in the Twin Cities. They'd be hiring around April. This would be seasonal, of course, which is fine, since I really would like to do something else for a paycheck. When winter comes around, I'll look for different work. Ximena is doing temp work in Eugene right now and she's been looking for work in the TC by long distance and that's difficult to do.
Then there's my mom in Arizona. She's doing much better since the accident but there's talk of moving her to assisted living. Right now, my brother and other relatives are taking shifts watching her and they're having problems finding someone to watch mom during the day because they have dayjobs. We would like to help out and they need help for the next month or two. What might happen is either just Ximena or both of us could end up going to Arizona to help out. There's a lot of things to consider at this point. And I don't think this would affect the move, but it certainly might affect OryCon.
An interesting and uncertain time. :-)
Getting back on track about the Twin Cities: there's a large writing community that we've already started touching base with. I'm reading journals of some of those writers. In other words, TC has that going towards its favor. The Twin Cities is also a big and growing biking city, with bike routes, paths, trails, and lanes. This is good as well since I've been communting by bike here for the last seven months. And believe it or not, people do bike in the winter there. Speaking of winter, I'm a native Minnesotan, so I know what to expect. Ximena has spent winters in Boston for college, so she knows winter, too.
I'll report more here as our plans progress.
At this point we've been digging into job and apartment hunting in the TC. Yeah, unemployment seems high everywhere and the economy sucks, but a move like this would be tough no matter what the state of the economy.
When I moved from Minnesota to Eugene back in '93 I had no safety net, very few belongings, no job, no place to stay except for a motel room. Today things are a little more complicated and I'm inclined to plan this move a little more carefully.
Anyway, we hope to move in March or April of this upcoming year. My thinking is since I've worked in groundskeeping and on a golf course for thirteen years, my best bet for employment is getting work with a golf course in the Twin Cities. They'd be hiring around April. This would be seasonal, of course, which is fine, since I really would like to do something else for a paycheck. When winter comes around, I'll look for different work. Ximena is doing temp work in Eugene right now and she's been looking for work in the TC by long distance and that's difficult to do.
Then there's my mom in Arizona. She's doing much better since the accident but there's talk of moving her to assisted living. Right now, my brother and other relatives are taking shifts watching her and they're having problems finding someone to watch mom during the day because they have dayjobs. We would like to help out and they need help for the next month or two. What might happen is either just Ximena or both of us could end up going to Arizona to help out. There's a lot of things to consider at this point. And I don't think this would affect the move, but it certainly might affect OryCon.
An interesting and uncertain time. :-)
Getting back on track about the Twin Cities: there's a large writing community that we've already started touching base with. I'm reading journals of some of those writers. In other words, TC has that going towards its favor. The Twin Cities is also a big and growing biking city, with bike routes, paths, trails, and lanes. This is good as well since I've been communting by bike here for the last seven months. And believe it or not, people do bike in the winter there. Speaking of winter, I'm a native Minnesotan, so I know what to expect. Ximena has spent winters in Boston for college, so she knows winter, too.
I'll report more here as our plans progress.