by vonkaar » Fri Jul 12, 2013 11:59 am
The wife isn't completely sold on the Pacific Northwest yet. She was born in San Diego and moved to Texas when she was 13, so she lives by John Denver's, "sunshine on my shoulders, makes me happy." Gray skies TOTALLY affected her. We're looking at one more year, one more winter here. If it's as bad as last year, or worse, I'll have to move. We'd likely look at California first, though I'm even open to leaving the country. The only real requirement is: good climate. She wants plenty of sunshine, I want to never experience Texas-style summers again. A vibrant seafood scene would also be lovely. Is San Diego our only option?
It fucking SUCKS living like a god damned gypsy. I have a really nice home office - with a giant panoramic window view overlooking the entire valley. But I'm totally unmotivated to REALLY set up my various workstations (electronics tinkering lab, etc) because I'm just going to have to pack it up and move again. Bullshit.
Schooling is way more scattered here than it was in Texas. In Texas, it was largely based on your district. Take the mid-cities (DFW) for example. If you lived in North Richland Hills, you were in the Birdville school district, which put you in one of 3 high-schools (all exemplary), all of which had very decent middle-schools and mostly good elementary schools. If you lived in Keller, HEB, Southlake, etc; you went to one of a few high schools, with the same story. Fort Worth - your chances go down terribly. Dallas, you're almost certainly fucked.
Here in Oregon, you could be in the same district and have completely different levels of schools. In my town (Scappoose), we have 3 elementaries, 2 of which are total shitholes. The other one (which we're closest to) gets high scores on GreatSchools.org, has a low teacher:student ratio, and has the best (and newest) facilities. This great school, however, is full. Sorry, we're all closed up, no more students can fit here. Back in Texas, they'd just hire more teachers and set up portable buildings outside until more facilities could be constructed. Here, they just say, "sorry, we're full... go further away." In my case, that means driving 15 miles further, to a school which gets a 2 (out of 10) on Greatschools. Bullllshiiiit.
When we were in Portland, we were in an amazing neighborhood (Eastmoreland, if any of the 1,000+ regular NT viewers know Portland), which contained a perfect elementary: Duniway. It scores a 10, which is one of the few K-5s in Portland that scored that high, has an amazing, beautiful old stonework building (looks just like the Astoria school in Kindergarten Cop), and is totally loved and supported by the local community. One example: the owner of a large landscaping firm lives in Eastmoreland, went to Duniway as a kid, and so volunteers all of the groundskeeping duties from his company. The school looks like a garden of eden year round. To be succinct, it's a fucking amazing school. The problem? The kids leave that school and go to a middle-school that gets a 3, has a 1:27 teacher:student, and last year featured a pregnant 7th grader. So most of the rich parents send their kids to Duniway through 5th, then private school thereafter. That right there is a perfect example of Oregon public schooling.
So Jen is actually talking about homeschooling. It's an open discussion right now. More on that on another thread, I figure. But if we left and moved to an area with great schools, we'd go for it. Or if we had good private schools nearby, there's that. We'll see how it goes.
Apropos DSL, it was my first broadband system and I was very happy to play Everquest and Diablo 2 over it. I tried to play Project1999 over my current DSL and saw 800ms pings. At least Diablo 2 has 'offline' mode :D.
Gaazy wrote:Now vonk on the other hand, is one of the most self absorbed know it alls in my memory of this site. Ive always thought so, and I still cant understand why in gods name he is here