2006-09-10
Home sweet... oh, nevermind
(a last minute preamble... I go for weeks and weeks without posting... now I'm posting twice in 24 hours? talk about a lack of pacing!!!)
This is the beginning of an exercise that many will say ��well, DUH!� to. I�m going to try to describe what I like� what I want out of life. I�m going to do this in bits and pieces, so don�t think you�re going to read the �Rosetta Stone of Tony� in the words below. Maybe after awhile, but certainly not yet.
Yeah, I see eyes rolling� and maybe I�m the ONLY one that hasn�t really, truly thought this out yet. Actually, I have thought this out before, but as with anything in life, changes occur. So� it�s time to think it all through again. This time� you get to come along for the ride.
The foremost thing I think about� almost on a daily basis� concerns a physical address to call home. Oh, I�m not homeless at the moment. I have a roof over my head, a closet to hang clothes in (well� OK, so maybe most of my hanging clothes are still in a storage locker... work with me here!). But I�m finally at a point in my life where I can really choose where to live. Prior to this, I was 21+ years in the Air Force� they of course told me where to live. I was married, and after I retired from the Air Force, that played into it (oh, I could go on about that! But I won�t :p ). But now� at present, the only restriction I have is that I be within a reasonable drive of a (preferably) major airport.
So� where do I imagine living, you ask? I�ve mentioned it before� probably more than once. Somewhere, anywhere I can see trees (and lots of them) when I look out any window. Where I can hear the earth�s natural sounds, rather than the sound of tires on concrete or asphalt. Somewhere I can, if I�m so inclined� wander outside without thought that I�ve forgotten to get dressed (in any manner :p ).
Do I want to be a hermit? No, not quite� although that in itself has it�s appeal. Do I want to do without porcelain (think toilets, sinks, etc)? Absolutely not� that is the one thing that differentiates man from the wild beasts (and you thought it was opposable thumbs! Silly people, it�s porcelain! Think about it!), and I�m not ready to return to the wild (excepting an occasional Saturday night at the local dungeon club). Do I want to do without cable TV? Well� yeah� but NOT the high speed internet connection it provides (but, I could make do with dial-up!).
My thoughts keep wandering to the Pacific NW� Oregon or Washington� but I don�t know. It can be so damn expensive to live there. I�m more than willing to pay what I have to, but it�s got to be reasonable� after all, I�m only there a handful of days each month. I�ve also heard that the Salt Lake City area has potential, although I�m concerned about living in a state that is a stones throw away from being a theocracy� or maybe I�m just buying into bad publicity. I�ve been in the back woods of a few places in the south, and the poverty that usually accompanies those locals usually means that the local infrastructure isn�t all that good (i.e. no Starbucks!), so those would have to be exceptional for me to consider.
The only real way to solve this is to actually visit some places and see for myself. I think that I�m going to start scheduling semi-monthly visits to different parts of the country, looking for a suitable area. One of the luxuries of my job is being able to fly just about anywhere for the weekend, with the airfare paid by someone else :) It�s time to take at least this long-held fantasy and make it a reality.
t85225 at 10:04 a.m.
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