From: steiny@steiny.com (Don Steiny)
Newsgroups: ca.general
Subject: Re: Leaving California
Keywords: quiting,california
Date: 27 Aug 92 19:14:03 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Don Steiny Software, Santa Cruz CA

case@ucs.sdsu.edu (Steve Case) writes:

>In article <4101@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us> harryd@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us 
>writes:

>Previous stuff deleted..
>>In short, you can have just about whatever you want.
>>Housing prices here range from just under $200,000 to over $300,000 for
>                                           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
>>homes most would find suitable.

>I doubt the poster intended highlight this, but "suitable" housing starting 
>at $200K is one definite reason why people are leaving CA. We have 
>vacationed a couple of times in SC, Capitola and Scotts Valley. From what we 
>saw, even $300K won't buy you much house. 

	Right, I live in a 1450 square foot 20 year old tract house (though
it has been remodeled with hardwood floors and such and is very nice).  It is
on a 7500 square foor lot and when I just refinanced about two months ago
it apprased at $325,000.00.   It is three bedroom, two bath.  

> Still, it is a nice area, though 
>downtown SC was still a mess (from the 89' quake) when we visited last summer. 

	Right again.   I live near the edge of town, with the university
a few blocks in one direction and a state park a few blocks in the other.
It is quite, yet I am walking distance from downtown.   Even in its destroyed
state it is an exciting place to be with many bookstores, record stores,
coffee shops and all types of live music and entertainment.   Santa Cruz
has 5 art theater screens downtown so I can choose from many interesting
movies, besides the university, with its many performances and and films.

	From where I live it is 30 minutes to 60 to anywhere in Silicon Valley,
with most of the companies being on the close side.   There are vanpools
car pools.   Actually, I cannot drive because I have limited vision and
I have managed to be an independent computer consultant in Silicon Valley
for more than 12 years.     Often I can telecommute, which is the best
of all.   

	For the last few years I have been teaching classes in C/UNIX.  I have
been teaching them all over the world, the East Coast, Japan, the midwest,
the mountian states.  I go to the Pacific Northwest every Summer for vacation 
and I have lived in the South (Arkansas).   I have traveled in Europe, Mexico,
and Canada.    There is no place I have been that is close to as nice as here.

	Of course, I grew up around here (I am a 5th generation Californian), 
but right now I am looking out my window at my beautiful garden with my windows
open enjoying the 70 degree weather, the same weather we have all year around.

	Not only that, but the job situation here is not so bad as people make
it out to be.   It is just different, not bad.   There is contraction
in defense and big companies are downsizing.     However, Silicon Valley
has THOUSANDS of small companies, many of them are doing quite well.   Often
the closing of a big company presents opportunities for small.   For instance
I heard that DEC will be closing their Western Regional Office.   If that is
the case, it seems there will be greater demand for VMS and ULTRIX experts
to do support for DEC customers.  

	It seems to me that no matter where you are there is a degree of 
uncertainty.    If you are in some place with limited choices for employement
perhaps housing prices will be cheaper, but if your job ceases to exist, then
you have to move to find a new one.

	Many people are working on an old paradigm, the idea that someone
goes to work for a company, buys a house, raises a family, retires, and so 
on, the Donna Reed model.    Now the majority of jobs that are being 
created are in smaller companies and people generally switch jobs many 
times in their life.    That is just the way the world is.   Why trouble
deaf heaven with your bootless crys?

	For one thing, what is the big poot about owning a home?   The big
value of owning a home is that if there is inflation, housing costs are fixed.
In inflationary times it becomes a capital investment instead of a roof over
your head.   If it is true as "The Economist" has been saying, that autonomous
centeral banks have now licked inflation, then we should not see more insane
inflation of property values and in a few years, interest rates should start
to go down.    In France home ownership is not very common.   Presumably the
French do not lie awake nights trying to figure out where they should move
so that they can own a home.   

	A few months ago the SF Chronicle ran an article in the Sunday paper
which was news clipping reporting the demise of California.   They were 
front cover stories from Time and Newsweek and other national publications.
The joke?   They were collected from over the last 30 years, and none of them
were recent.   

	I teach classes to various companies all over the world, as I said.
I also am a part-time musician, concert promoter, and writer.   I also like
to travel.    Because of this I meed people all over the world.   My 
observation is that some people are just unhappy and spend their whole lives
being bummed out because the world is not the way they want it to be and is
the way it is.   Others are just amazed at the world and find it interesting
and marvelous.    

	California is and will continue to be an amazing and marvelous place.

-don
-- 
Don Steiny
Don Steiny Software
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
(408) 425-0382