A Job Nibble

Boy am I tired of being unemployed. I've been laid off since Dec 05th. The cash & savings are gone & I'm taking up a position on the street corner because I think I can take the old Vet with no legs that lives there. Anyway I got an e-mail from a recruiter for Intel in Oregon. Oregon, now that's a stretch from South Carolina! So my obvious questions revolve about y'all from Oregon telling me what it's like there. Help!

Best of luck!

Here's a quick rundown on Oregon: no sales tax; motorcycle registration is relatively cheap and good for two years; cars have to wait for a pump jockey to pump the gas; great microbreweries!; lots of great riding all over the state; you have to visit Portland's Powell's Bookstore, it's an entire city block; housing prices around Portland are relatively expensive, and prices are going up over most of the state.

The best news for you is that you won't be confused with all of the Californians that have moved there, that the natives dislike so much.

;-)

In the 80's, the governor sponsored a campaign to get more tourists and fewer residents. This spawned postcards that read "Oregonians don't tan in the summer, they rust". Didn't work, however.

SHHhhhhhh

The riding in Oregon is really fine. Part of being the Vermont of the west is that social engineering has directed zoning ordinances to keep open space open and to keep people with people. Driving out of Portland takes 1/2 hour and then you can be in the sticks, or along the magnificent Columbia river. Driving east of Portland puts one in the high cascades and beyond that, the dry canyon country similar to Arizona or Utah. Driving west of Portland puts one in the coast range and ultimatly along the picturesque Oregon coast.

Down side is that Portland is where Intel is located (Hillsboro actually) and that this area can be described as a green box with a grey roof. The rivers now have been at flood stage for a week, after 20 some days of rain. Sunday was dry, now another series of storms is predicted to drop more rain for as far out as the weather men will predict. It rarely snows, but winter temps stay in the low and mid 40s. My wife gets real tired of the rain. I get tired of washing my bike. (not that tired)

Spring is beautiful. Wildflowers are everywhere and fields are a green so bright it burns your eyes. (then it rains again) Summer is spectacular. It is dry between 4th of July and September 15, Autumn is beautiful between the storms that come in increasing frequency until December when they are continuous. (We did have a 10 day spell of cold dry weather this autumn)

People are generally friendly, but not necessarily good drivers. Caution is advised. Police is underfunded, so patrols are not often watching. Portland is the microbrew beer capital of the USA. We have more breweries than Munich!

Come on up if it feels right!

Bob, I got a hit from an Intel recruiter last month. I don't want to pee on your parade, but they seem to start hot and heavy in January to fill out their databases for the year and you never hear back from them. I haven't heard a peep since they made me fill out their extensive evaluation.

I'm an ex-Intel (ok, it was 20 years ago) employee, and a little disappointed by the whole thing. No matter, I couldn't have found a house in my price range out there anyway.

Out west

WET, WET, dry, WET, then in the next half hour the skies open up and blinding sun/down pour or both.

Riding west of the Cascades any fuel tank will do, east of said hills a 33lt tank is a good idea (1.5 persons per square mile, you figure it out)

After getting a tag good for 4 years, you have the great Pacific North West to rip around in

Beer and coffee shops, the only thing more plentiful than rain in Oregon

Oh what the hey, lived in Oregun most of my 62 fun filled years and must admit it is a nice place. Can be a wet one at times but I don't know anybody that ever melted in a rain storm.

I guess you could say that I am one of those Natives that is not all that appreciative of soooo many arrivals from the golden state of mind and we all know which state that is. Traffic from Eugene to Portland has become horrific but I guess that is relative to one's own perspective. If you compare traffic in the upper Willamette valley to same in the Puget Sound area then Oregon doesn't seem so bad. We have some pretty good land use planning laws here but with the population increase these laws are coming under pressure. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me to pave over 40 foot deep top soil just to add more lanes to a freeway or to provide more parking for some whatever ___mart super junk merchant store.

Oh, hi Bob How's that beauty of an RS doing? Reedsport Sugar Shack ummmmmm good

As a follow up I got a magic call setting up a phone interview next week. They love me & want to have my baby. I'm excited! If you want to see bad traffic you should see Augusta, GA in April for Masters Week.

Red100RT said:

Oh, hi Bob How's that beauty of an RS doing? Reedsport Sugar Shack ummmmmm good

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Hi James
Just as sweet as that red R100RT. I swapped the dual seat for the 3/4 seat, and got it all detailed for a road grime baptismal

BobMielke said:

As a follow up I got a magic call setting up a phone interview next week. They love me & want to have my baby. I'm excited!

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Cool! I must be asking for too much money.

Underfunded until you get caught

Bob_M said:

The riding in Oregon is really fine. Police is underfunded, so patrols are not often watching. Come on up if it feels right!

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Just be careful those first few months getting the lay of your rubber on the land. I heard tell from some guys downtown in the big ol' city of Boise about how expensive tickets were in that fine state of O.
We all slowed way down when running through that tip on the way to Laguna Seca: FYI
But it IS gorgeous.

Consider Idaho too, maybe. HP and Micron ...
Cheers!
-R

BobMielke said:

~~~snip~~~
If you want to see bad traffic you should see Augusta, GA in April for Masters Week.

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South Bend, IN traffic right after a ND home football game is worse then the Masters IMHO. I based this comment on having sat in both of them. More then once.

Californication just might be the thing that pushes OR off my list of places I could live someday (and it used to be at the top of that list). Thanks a lot y'all.

Veg, you done hit the proverbial nail on de head when you described the Californication of Oregon. This phenomena is happening at an un-believable pace and it is the reason we are leaving. Found a spot in the very north eastern part of Washington state where it snows and gets very cold at times just enough to keep 'em out and the locals seem not to mind a few displaced Oregonians Rain used to do the trick but I guess things got so bad in the golden state of mind that even Oregon gloom doesn't do the trick anymore. Did some work for a lady the other day from down there and she just couldn't believe how wet it is on the Oregon coast. She said, "They never told me about all this rain". You just gotta wonder

I'm sure you'll be happy to know that I'm one Californian that moved back. I lived in Seattle for 8 years. I was quite well prepared for the rain, but what really got to me after a while was the sheer grayness of it all. I simply have to see that yellow ball more often than once in a blue moon.

You're a good man Darryl now if only a few 100K more would see the light.