You're in New Haven, so isn't that "What did *we* do to deserve that?"

Personally, I find it easy to believe that somebody might want to leave California at the moment (it's a *mess* there), but difficult to imagine heading for New England. Too crowded.

Most of New England isn't crowded, although most of Connecticut is. Much Vermont is empty, abandoned and not unsettled, as is much of New Hampshire. The fate of abandoned farmland is an interesting study, the fate of abandoned or nearly abandoned industrial towns also. There are actually areas in Maine that were never settled.

And I know what I did to deserve it.

Willin: When I first found/registered on the Nexus 2 weeks ago, I doggedly went through all of the existing threads. In one of them - not this one - Jim Gifford explained his pulling up the left coast (geographical, not political description) stakes and resetting them on the right coast (ibid). South was out. DC metro was out (didn't blame him on that - gotta be a masochist for political hot air emananting from across the river to live in N. VA). That left Philly and further north (Bawlamer is too close to DC). IIRC, non-urban but close enough to civilization to visit it were another objective. A visit, again IIRC, led to settling on CT.

One plus, Amtrak's Acela makes Boston-DC in 6 hrs, regular service in 8, NYC DC in 3:45, regular in 5:30., letting you avoid the tender mercies of airport security Gestapo should you so choose for NE corridor travel.

I've avoided posting in this thread, first from abject humility and second because... well, "retiring" is not a word that fits me, my intentions or my near-future plans. I don't believe in retirement - at least in the notion that you do something profitable but detestable until some particular day, and then *spoing* instantly become the fishin', travelin', writin', pipe-smokin' gent you wanted to be for your first six decades. Like Travis McGee, I have taken "retirement" in the chunks it's come my way; I am about halfway through a sizeable piece that will end when I have roots in the new home town and figure out what I want to do next.

But I am always busy, and have been fortunate enough to be busy mostly with things that interested and pleased me. Robert Heinlein was major among those things, and will never be set aside entirely, but having made my contributions I have been trying to move on to other interests since early 2005... and we all know what happened back in the spring of Ought Five. I have to move on now.

Some of the discussion of "why Connecticut" is scattered in other threads, and OJ's summary is sparse but not inaccurate. In super short, we still have two kids to raise and decided to do it somewhere better suited to all our interests and futures. Catherine, I can see why you'd say NE is crowded, but it's no more crowded than equivalent pieces of California, including the rather dense suburban sprawl we now inhabit. We are moving to a substantially rural piece of CT, almost as close to Hahvahd as Y'le, and did so with the ability to choose our new domicile pretty much anywhere we liked - we considered most of the northeast corner and even idly looked at Canada and Costa Rica. I love my home state but have no compunctions about leaving it behind, almost certainly for good - especially now. Hum "Changes in Latitudes" through and you'll get the idea. Jimmy B is always bad for the sober, settled, dedicated mindset... although you'll notice he somehow became one of the wealthiest men in the game. He's one of my heroes, too.

Makes sense, Jim. I hope that we'll see you around as a participant in the ongoing conversation, if not running things, in any event. You and Audrey are good company.

In another forum I enjoy almost as much as this one, one of the administrators posted a link to a cogent summary of what's ailing California these days.

California will recover when Prop 13 and all its kittens are drowned. Including the notion that the peepul are qualified to vote in spending and funding that is utterly outside all normal processes and untouchable.

Tagging someone as being against Prop 13 was a mighty weapon in the recent election. Over 30 years and they still haven't figured out the poison, nor its many pockets of governmental necrosis.

Every trend that overswings in one direction will eventually overswing in the other (Scott's Law #19). California was the It state for so long that it turned into an exercise to see how many people could fit into the L.A. basin. This has to be followed by an era where only a madman would want to move there. No ducking it.

True. Also true of northern California and the San Francisco Bay area, which are culturally and socially a world away from the LA area. My husband and I moved out of California two years ago, and are not regretting it in the least, although he has family and I have a job there still.

Well, in 1995 I moved *to* Silicon Valley after having spent half my life in Houston (and much of the rest in Dallas), so I am still agog at how much higher the quality of life is here, at least for me. I never fit in Texas. Never owned a cowboy hat or boots. Don't hunt, fish, live and die by the football team, drink, or enjoy contests to see how many jalapeños I can eat in one sitting. I don't look on mosquitoes big enough to stand flat-footed and screw a turkey as charming local fauna, let alone the two-inch-long cockroaches that infest every square inch of Houston or the grackles that fill the trees with millions of racous, shitting spawn of Hades every sunset. I don't particularly enjoy having to carry a jacket around in 98-degree and 98% humidity weather because every other building is chilled to meat locker temperatures, then stepping outside, your glasses fog up instantly as the cold lenses hit the hot, humid air. I like to be able to return to my car in the afternoon, sit on the seat without blistering my thighs, touch the steering wheel without risking second-degree burns on my fingers, and not wait until arriving at my destination before the interior air temp drops to double digits, even with the AC on full blast. It's lovely to be in a county where the highest point is a mountain, *not* a freeway interchange; which actually supports a full-time NPR radio station, and you can find other offerings on the radio that aren't sermons, in Spanish, or both ("We play all kinds of music! We got Country *and* Western!"). I enjoy paying somewhat less in property taxes than my actual mortgage payment costs me, and being able to choose among several local theaters that show indie/foreign films.

That said, there are aspects I miss a lot. Some very special people in my life are still in Texas. My only child is buried there. My 89-year-old mother is there. I can't get my beloved Tex-Mex now to save my soul, or Louisiana-style seafood, though there is *one* decent BBQ place I found here. I miss the bluebonnets and Indian paintbrush in the spring. That's really about it, though.

Truth to tell? I've never felt more at home, or been more culturally engaged, than when I lived in the Washington, DC, suburbs. What luxury to be able to wander the Smithsonian at a leisurely pace, and take advantage of all their activities for resident associates! Four actual seasons! Tulips and cherry blossoms! To be an easy train ride from New York and Philadelphia was wonderful. All things being equal, I'd go back in a heartbeat.