WARNING: The following post blatantly violates the rules.
Those of you who follow the gaming industry may have seen the news that the company I work for is undergoing a pretty substantial restructuring, and among other things, consolidating the 2K Games division into a single, San Francisco-based office. That is indeed true, and along with that confirmation is the news that Heather and I will be packing up and shipping out to the lesser coast at the end of the summer.
Anyone who knows me even a little bit (or reads this site, for that matter) knows that I positively love New York City, so this wasn’t an easy decision to make. While I grew up in the ‘burbs and have lived in the city for twelve years, Heather was born in Brooklyn, and has never even lived beyond its borders, so this is an even bigger deal for her. But ultimately it came down to being a great career move for me, and an acceptance of the fact that the entire industry is based on the west — not east — coast, so this was bound to happen sooner or later.
As to where we’ll be setting up camp, we haven’t figured that out yet. We’ll be living somewhere in Marin County, but that’s about all we’ve decided so far. There’s a lot to do between now and the time we move out there…among other things, we need to find a tenant for our current place, as we’ve decided to rent it for a while until we know the SF Bay area a bit better and are ready to buy. We’ll also need to get a car (probably two!), which is pretty scary as well. But we’re up to the challenge.
The hardest part will be breaking it to NYC. We’ve had our disagreements before, but we’ve always made up in the end. At this point I can’t fathom being so far away from New York. I’ll get over it eventually, but there’s no denying that the Golden Gate is a poor surrogate for the Brooklyn bridge. One is a marvel of technology and art, the other known for its suicides as much as anything.
It’s gonna be tough, no question about it. But I think after a few dozen screenings of Vertigo and a few seasons of Monk I’ll settle in. It will be the place I live, but New York will always be my home.
Welcome out west. I’m honestly shocked since you bought your place in NY about two years ago or so?
Marin, hm. Not the first place I’d tell someone from out east to go. The landscape is very alien IMO, lots of dramatic hillsides with freeways weaving along at the bottom of them, and houses hidden amongst dense trees on the slopes of these hills. Not saying it won’t work for you, just that it’s kind of shocking, is all.
Of course, I’m originally from Sonoma just a bit further north where all the open spaces are, and all of us see Marin (certain coastal cities in particular) as the wealthy spoiled elite. So I’m required by hometown socio-economic laws to be hatin’, but the truth is that everyone on northern edge of this big ol’ region lives there because they can’t afford to live in the cities or Marin. :P
(PS: enjoy the insanity of California politics and propositions. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen two double-sided ballot pages full of state budget and law yes/no questions, resulting in people voting yes to every roads/schools/environmental/etc project and no on all the taxes that would pay for them. I kind of miss being in CA because the bureaucracy, the activist-driven parties, and the constant elections over everything was entertaining in a zoo sort of way.)
(PPS: If you really want to score points with the locals in SF, hate the Transamerica Pyramid. I don’t know why that building inspires so much rage since tall buildings there usually ain’t much to look at, but it does.)
I think you’ll like it a lot but moving away from your friends/family has got to be horrible.
I was just vacationing there last week, drank every night with my friends and went to dave and busters twice. That place has a lot of $2 drinks on tues/wed.
I’m happy that you were invited out West. Yeah, the East Coast is better, but you’ll adjust to the moon people.
Hey, if we can move from Munich to New York to Marin County, you can do it, too!
You haven’t moved us to Munich yet :)