Where I am...and why.

OK...this is a LONG story, but I'll keep it to a short version. I know you don't want to read a blog of somebody you know little or not at all.

I live in Washington -- Seattle area. I moved here almost 6 months ago from Florida (Tampabay area).

I realized back in 2002 that I really hated living in Florida. I'd lived in Florida all of my conscious life (moved there when I was 1), and by the time I was a teen I'd realized it really wasn't for me. Not the right atmosphere (more "Southern" than people from elsewhere think it is), and definitely TOO HOT.

Well, years pass and I forget about my desire to leave Florida. Then in late 2002, shortly after a breakup with a girl I had been dating for about 6 months, I started rethinking my life and why I wasn't happy. Suddenly I remembered how I said (waaay back when I was a teen) how I always wanted to get out of Florida. So I started researching other areas of the country to see what appealed to me. I bought a big laminated map of the U.S. and marked about 10 places that had caught my interest (with the online searching I'd been doing).

Every "factor" I looked in to (in terms of qualities of an area), it seemed that Seattle was always in about the top 3 or 4. If I had scored them, it surely would have had the highest score. So I decided to take a vacation here and check it out for myself. I was purposefully VERY SKEPTICAL when I came here. I wanted to see the 'worst' of the place to see if I would be OK with it.

So, knowing Seattle is notorious for rain, I purposely came in the rainy, cold season. I expected it to be a cool and interesting city, but I had no idea what beautiful sights and scenery that awaited me in the Pacific North West (PNW). It was something I didn't realize before coming. I'd never heard how beautiful the 'country' was in the PNW. I really did come here with a very purposeful skeptical point of view, but in spite of that, I instantly fell in love with the area. I knew right away this was the place for me...I didn't have to look at any other places.

I started planning to move out here. I was almost done with my Master's degree at the time, and planned to move as soon as I completed the Master's degree. I thought my field would allow me to find a job that would relocate me in no time flat and it was almost a done deal already.

Boooooy was I mistaken. The industry had taken a big downturn (mostly due to software work going overseas so much), and NOBODY was paying relocations. I didn't want to pay for it myself, so I insisted I wasn't going to go until somebody offered relocation. Well months turned into years and my job searching out here was still going, but had slowed down quite a bit.

Then in November of 2006, I met a new girl, Hope, that I started dating. We got very close and were getting along quite well. In early 2007 I had applied at a software company in Tampa that her brother-in-law worked for as well as a position with the company I already worked for in the Redmond office. I had decided that if I got the job with Hope's brother-in-law, I would forget about Seattle for a few years and concentrate on that job.

However, I did not get the job with Hope's brother-in-law's company and apparently the interview I had done over the phone with my company's Redmond office had gone really well. Without a second interview, they gave me an offer after the interview. The offer was fair and it offered a decent relocation package.

Well....now it was a weird situation. I was quite happy with Hope and we were starting to make longer term plans, but suddenly I got the offer to make it up to Seattle. What I had been hoping for for 5 YEARS. How could I pass up that offer?

Short version of the story is that I couldn't pass up the offer. Hope and I have worked out a long distance relationship because she can't move here right now as she is going back to school to change careers. She is in the middle of a program and would have to wait a year or more at least to even get started in a similar program out here.

So....we are doing this long distance until next Septemberish when she should finish school and be able to move out here with me. So here I am Hopeless in Seattle....at least until next year.