The Wandering Monkey

Happy Friday everyone. Last night I connected with the Phoenix swing dance scene. It's actually not that bad. Consider that the south bay / San Jose area has just a few venues left, this place is comparable to that. It's not like the San Francisco scene, but nothing is, really.
Life is still pretty simple and relaxing. During the day I am studying pronunciation of Chinese characters. The vowels are particularly difficult. In the evenings I go out to dance either at the swing or ballroom scenes. I may plan a road trip to New Orleans at the end of the month, and perhaps visit my parents in Montana. I think I'll grow bored of Phoenix within a month or two, but that was always the plan anyhow. Moving and separating from my friends in the Bay Area was difficult and painful. Making the change is like stepping into a cold lake. Entering is difficult, but once you're in, you're in and you might as well enjoy it.
My cousin Rick is quite an entrepreneur. He's renting several houses out, and he's starting a gymnastics gym from the ground up. Considering he's younger than me by several years, I cannot help by compare accomplishments. But I can map data from one format to another! Let's not forget that ;-)
It is no secret I have not been satisfied with my job for a very long time. I never really liked it; I began doing it so that I could get a job a Activision, in the hope of making games some day. By the time I was able to make a transition into the game studio, the amount of project Activision supported dropped from 11 to 4. The only job I could have secured would have been something like Asset Manager, which is an organizational, non-creative role. I chose against it and went into consulting doing the same job I had been doing up to that point.
My job can be described as business-to-business e-commerce. Taking files from one customer and translating them into a format which can be imported into the local system. Chosing the consulting path lead to many changes. First, in three months of consulting I would gross my annual salary I had been making at Activision. Second, I was put on projects, which means I could focus on one thing without having stupid, minor tasks assigned to me. And third, I relocated from Los Angeles to Silicon Valley, which was a much more geek-friendly environment.
I worked at three major clients, and I was paid by the hour. Only once did I interview at a start-up. But by that time the Silicon Valley boom had been going so long I really doubted it could continue, so I turned down the job. My prediction turned out to be true, and just about 1 and a half years later the big dot-com crash came.
After the crash I stayed employed a lot longer than most people. I was there almost a year afterwards. When the layoff finally came, I was prepared for it and had been anticipating it. It was just a month after my last day of work that I moved out of the Bay Area.
The decision to move was a very difficult one. The most compelling reason to stay was the friends and history I had built up there. The next biggest reason to stay was the environment of San Francisco. For a small city, it really has a lot to offer. I'd say no city in the U.S. is superior to it for culture and interesting things to do. The downside of S.F. has got to be the bums, the dirty streets.
In the end, there were powerful motivations to leave. First was the job market. Former $100K jobs asking for one skill had changed to $55K jobs asking for five skills, with more people looking for them. Second was the cost of housing. To buy a *modest* 2 BR house in the peninsula costs $500K. For some reason the housing prices have not fallen yet. Like the job market and stock market, the housing market must fall soon. But either way it is not likely to appreciate too much. It just did not seem like a good investment.
The third issue was personal. It had been a difficult year recovering from previous relationships. And last, there was the question of career. I did not like my career path, and I wanted to start something new. However, to start new would mean a pay cut, and with a bad job market and expensive real estate market, it didn't make sense.
I knew I wanted to get out of my apartment in SF. At least move into a house with people around, possibly pets, and lower rent. But then I considered, if I'm moving, why would I move somewhere in the bay area? I had my friends there -- some very good ones, too. But no mortgage, no wife, no kids and and no job. And at 33 there was still time to do something adventurous and perhaps a little foolish.
I had taken a trip to China with my good friend Merry in November of 2002. While there, I realized this is a pretty cool place in a lot of ways. As a foreigner, relatively tall, blonde hair and with blue eyes, I received a lot of attention. Plus the place is really very interesting. And in Shanghai, you can feel the energy of the people running around. It felt not unlike Silicon Valley four years ago. They have more skyscrapers and intriguing architecture than any city I have seen, including SF, Chicago, New York. I suppose they cannot beat Paris, though.

http://photos.yahoo.com/bc/jszyszko/lst?.dir=/ChinaTripNov2002&.src=ph&.view=t&BCID=jszyszko

Doing consulting allowed me to go to any city in the U.S. and get a job withing a few weeks. So I figured my adventures have lead me to Silicon Valley, where I lived throughout the boom. If I can make an adjustment to another country, another language, and work there as well, then I could truly go to any place in the world. So why not?
I'm brushing up on Swing Dancing and Mandarin. If I teach English for 6 months I'll know if I am keen on the country and the culture. I also intend to teach swing dancing. Then we'll see where it all leads.
Peace,
Jim