Fashion Board 3-5-04 to 4-6-04

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by robustpuppy
Vancouver is my unrealistic pick. I would move there in a heartbeat if I knew I could earn a living there.

I love Vancouver. It's a great city. I just don't know what I would do with myself there.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?
Dosmetic City poll? Here's what TM wrote:

"If you absolutely had to move, where would you move and why?

This isn't a fantasy poll. This is a practical one based on your means and current situation. If you are so wealthy that you could up and move to the French Riviera and never work again, then that is a legit answer."

I'm assuming you could practically move to Barbados. It can't be that expensive. The kids would love it!

I believe there is a high concentration of lawyers resident there, so presumably he's got sufficient savings to live off of -- including all those medical bills for the kids! Just think what they could get up to on an island.

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally posted by taxwonk
I love Vancouver. It's a great city. I just don't know what I would do with myself there.

I offer a quote:

I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different.

-- Kurt Vonnegut

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by NotFromHere
Vancouver is cool. Has the same sort of attraction that Seattle has - clean, surrounded by mountains (Whistler's about a 2 hour drive - gorgeous) and you get the hockey, eh. But more chinese restaurants rather than Japanese and thai. And Victoria is very cute, more of a British flavor. And you can't beat the exchange rate. $200 will make you feel like a rich man. But gas is freakin freakin expensive. They sell it in imperial litres (which is like a quart) for over $2.

Is it sunnier in Vancouver than Seattle?

I could go to any decent-sized city that is relatively warm and not too overcast.

[greatwhitenorthchick]

Originally posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?
I forgot about Vancouver. Have you been there? I need to at least visit. I hear it's phenomenal.

Vancouver is a lovely city. It does rain a lot though. Probably as much as Seattle. It is nice to have a mountain you can climb almost in the middle of the city and Stanley Park is very nice. It used to be much nicer about a decade ago, before North Van began expanding so much into the mountains. And I think the development will get worse as a result of the Olympics in 2010. Still nice though. Outdoorsy, friendly people, kind of an "American" feel to it.

If I were doing a fantasy get-away-from-it-all move, though, I would move to Saltspring Island, which is off the coast of Vancouver. I'd keep a place in a big city though (maybe not NY, but somewhere big) just so I wouldn't lose my fucking mind. I'd also have a chalet in Banff (or Gstaad), a place in Paris, and maybe some kind of share in a villa in St. Lucia or something like that, so this is kind of a fantasy.

ETA - I realize I did not correctly answer the poll. If I absolutely had to live somewhere else than NYC, it would, of course, depend on a place where my husband and I could agree (no small feat) - probably out west somewhere, like Portland or Seattle, and if not in the US, we would probably move back to Toronto. That would be a necessity move though, because I don't want to go anywhere, and you'd probably have to get wild horses out to drag me back to boring old Toronto.

[baltassoc]

I'd immediately move to whichever of the following cities had a job offer paying well enough to live at the same level I do now considering relative real estate prices:

Austin
Charlotte, NC
Albuquerque (and I might learn how to spell it)
San Diego
San Francisco
Silicon Valley

Foreign:
Dublin (Dublin is like combining Austin and Seattle and beer - its a good combination)
London

Somewhat less realistic domestic locations:
Carmel, CA
Taos, NM

I recently saw a job posting for a law professorship at the University of the South Pacific Law School in Vanuatu that would be pretty cool but for my student loans. I suspect COL is pretty low there otherwise, and one could live on the US$35k they were offering.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?
I offer a quote:

I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different.

-- Kurt Vonnegut

That much I know. The trick is to find someone to pay you handsomely for doing it.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?
I offer a quote:

I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different.

-- Kurt Vonnegut

Save this and bring it up when he's memorialized on Death Pool.

[Bad_Rich_Chic]

Originally posted by RedLady
Plus, lots of people retire out to Santa Fe and to find themselves and become artists. They all end up in real estate.

Boulder - a little crunchy?

You made me laugh and get coffee up my nose. Your comment about Santa Fe is so on, and it reminds me of something someone once told me about Boulder: half the population is looking for the perfect mantra, and the other half is looking for the perfect latte.

Denver but my sister says its like any other big city, lots of people and traffic.

Apparenty, it also now has the highest COL of any non-coastal city in the US. It does not have correspondingly high salaries.

baltassoc
Albuquerque (and I might learn how to spell it)

Really? Albuquerque always struck me as a pit, right up there with Pueblo CO. Next time you're there, pick me up a bracelet and tell Gus I say "Hi," though.

BR(shopping Gus's was the only thing that made a detour through Albuquerque worthwhile)C

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally posted by NotFromHere
My best friend, who lived in NYC for 5 years said it would be a fabulous place to live if only she had 7 figure salary. Otherwise, not so fun.

Your best friend is an idiot, but I wouldn't expect you to see that.

TM

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?
I offer a quote:

I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different.

-- Kurt Vonnegut

Obviously, I should have paid closer attention to that fucking sunscreen song. I missed some vital wisdom due to my "good taste" and "high standards."

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally posted by NotFromHere
(although I suspect he is a Thurgreed sock from having called you a dumbshit)

You're getting me mixed up with someone else. I never say "dumbshit." I frequently say, "dumbass," dumbass.

TM

[Bad_Rich_Chic]

Originally posted by ThurgreedMarshall
Your best friend is an idiot, but I wouldn't expect you to see that.

Then again, you can't deny that NYC would be a fabulous place to live on a 7 figure salary.

So would just about anywhere, but it still strikes me as a factually true statement. The fact that it is also a fabulous place to live on a lowish-six-figure salary doesn't change that.

BR(mid-five-figure salaries seem to reduce it from "fabulous" to "pretty cool," however)C

[evenodds]

Places I would live other than Austin . . .

I've thought about moving to a few places over the past couple of years as tech dried up here and I went so far as to look for jobs in Nassau and housing in Paris.

When I ran the numbers for Paris, the CoL was ridiculous even with the CoL adjustment from the OM's company. We still might have gone for a couple of years had they not started laying people off.

If I absolutely had to live somewhere other than Austin, it would be Nassau. We can both work in the Bahamas (a consideration when becoming an ex-pat) and we have lots of family there and in Florida.

[Mister_Ruysbroeck]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
Obviously, I should have paid closer attention to that fucking sunscreen song. I missed some vital wisdom due to my "good taste" and "high standards."

Kurt didn't write that.