[OT] From Texas to New Hampshire

[Jon maddog Hall]

richard.soule at oracle.com said:
>  To me Austin is MUCH better than NH from a  quality of life standpoint

I think for a bachelor or a young married (but childless) couple who likes to party,
this might be true.  I think it starts to even out when you start to have children.

richard.soule at oracle.com said:
> While the heat in Austin is  extreme, it's nothing compared to the cold in
> NH.

I often tell people that you can always put on an additional layer or two of
clothing if you are too cold, but you can only take off so much when you are too hot,
and even less legally.  Of course in Austin there is "Hippie Hollow":

[Warning: Pictures of Naked people]    http://www.hippiehollow.com/

the clothing optional beach on Lake Austin.

richard.soule at oracle.com said:
> Eventually he got a job with a small company but they are only  paying him
> 35K. However with that job he is able to afford a 4 bedroom  house with a one
> car garage on a 1/2 acre lot with a fenced in back yard.

Yes, but when he went to buy that car to put in that garage, he was only making
35K per year.  Unless cars sell for a lot less in Austin then they sell other places
his salary affects the type of car he can buy, the amount of money he can invest,
etc.

My mortgage on my house is less than $2k per month, 24K per year (that includes
taxes), for a three-bedroom house on 1.5 acres of land, two car garage, etc.  So the
friend who was making 60-70K per year in Nashua and only had the garden apartment
must have been spending his money some other place.

I moved back to NH from Silicon Valley because I could not afford a house there in my
own lifetime, even with the higher wages paid there.  On the other hand, NH is a good
balance between home affordability and salary earned.

richard.soule at oracle.com said:
> If you don't mind a longer commute  (and remember snow can make a long
> commute much longer) than you should  be able to find housing that is
> comparable to Austin.

It snows three to four times a year to the point that the commute becomes "much
longer".  And sometimes those snows happen on weekends or holidays.  The other 200
working days things are fine.

richard.soule at oracle.com said:
> Good luck on your quest! The GNHLUG folks are great. You'll find that  GNHLUG
> is the greatest LUG in all of the US and probably the world! I  miss them
> quite a bit.

Here we agree, and we miss you too, Rich!

maddog

-- 
Jon "maddog" Hall
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