Seriously considering moving to California -- need some tips

I didn't get around to reading all 7 pages of posts so forgive me if this was already mentioned. If you are considering San Diego county, the only place that has an eclectic, artistic, pedestrian freindly close knit community with shops, cafes, and music would be Hillcrest and the surrounding areas. Hillcrest is as close to San Francisco as San Diego gets (in more ways than one). It is an older part of town that was designed when people didn't all have cars. As a result, everything is fairly close together.

San Diego really only has 3-4 areas that are predominantly younger currently hip people. Hillcrest/Kensington (a gay center, independant theaters/coffee houses), Pacific/Ocean/Mission Beach (they have filmed multiple MTV beach functions in those areas, mostly naked sunburned drunk college students), La Jolla (very expensive, near UCSD), then farther north along the coast, Leucadia/Cardiff (more the surfer variety but still cool)

Most of the other areas of San Diego county tend to be family ville where we just want an affordable home with decent schools to put our kids in. Being located near business centers can make our commutes a little better.

You can pretty much bet that the farther you go from the coast, the cheaper it gets but can be blistering hot during the summer.

Good Luck.

Monkeyman

I got some very good, and unexpected, word at work today that I'm going to be able to rock the Caltech angle. San Diego sounds nice & all, but I think Pasadena is going to work. Yay!

Monkeyman,
You left out Lakeside!

On 2003-05-30 02:03, Humuhumu wrote:
I got some very good, and unexpected, word at work today that I'm going to be able to rock the Caltech angle. San Diego sounds nice & all, but I think Pasadena is going to work. Yay!

Hey HumuHumu,

I live in Glendale (near Pasadena) we could do each other's hair!

I only read page 7 and that thing Bong wrote both confuses and scares me. After a night at Sam's, anything's possible.

It took way more time & effort than it should have, but I've finally brushed up my resume. I hate selling myself, but on the off-chance that one of you guys knows somebody who knows somebody... here it is. I've got a goofy & varied background, but hey, maybe someone will find me useful.

HumuHumu - now you got me re-working my resume now. I am in the process of looking around for work these days as well...
Anyway, I thought I'd mention that there is a great book out there that will give you tons of suggestion for finding jobs. It's called Knock 'em Dead. If you don't have it already - it's a good investment. Here it is on Amazon... http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1580627595/ll-20

Wow Humuhumu! The stuff you do sounds like science or something? You see, I'm a government bureaucrat and I don't know nothing about stuff that actually works. But I do have the 'appearance of working' down like a Mo' Fo'!

Hey, do you think you could do some of that genetic engineering stuff and come up with something that, say, is like the body of a Mai Tai and the head of Baxdog, the need for identity like Kahukini, the temper of Mad Tiki, the sweet consideration for others of Bong, and the need to escape family duties of Polynesian Pop?

I've ofter thought that I'd like a genetic duplicate of myself to hang out with. But after thinking about I thought that probably wouldn't be a good idea 'cause we'd be too cheap to buy each other drinks, end up drinking all the other's booze and end up in a fight kicking my own ass!

Humuhumu, Pasadena: the good: lotsa good restaurants, close to the Bahooka and Damon's, Rose Bowl Swap Meet, Poobah's Record Shop, some interesting archetechture......the bad: some areas of high crime, too far from the beach, expensive houses in good areas.....the ugly: summer heat, smog, and traffic. I lived there 9 long years, fled to San Buenaventura by the Sea.

Here in Thousand Oaks we have Ingen ....I mean Amgen, one of the largest biotech companies in the world.....not quite as hot or smoggy, but rising real state prices and the palaces of Amgen execs and Hollywood types (Heather Locklear, George Kennedy, Sofia Loren, Martin Lawrence,etc) make most of the 60's & 70s tract homes almost unaffordable. No downtown here, but it is only 30 minutes to Ventura that has a good downtown area and restaurants, and the ocean. Big drawback.....not much Tiki here......but L.A. and Orange County are nearby if you have a car.....good luck on your move...

humuhumu is going to be the little young lady from pasadena

whee!

Piffle on all the geocentric polemic.

Live where you love, love where you live and for everthing else, there's American Express.

*On 2003-06-05 13:41, bongofury wrote:*Here in Thousand Oaks we have Amgen, one of the largest biotech companies in the world.....not quite as hot or smoggy, but rising real state prices and the palaces of Amgen execs and Hollywood types (Heather Locklear, George Kennedy, Sofia Loren, Martin Lawrence,etc) make most of the 60's & 70s tract homes almost unaffordable. No downtown here, but it is only 30 minutes to Ventura that has a good downtown area and restaurants, and the ocean. Big drawback.....not much Tiki here......but L.A. and Orange County are nearby if you have a car.....good luck on your move...

Amgen - that would be a good place to apply - i used to know someone who worked there... want me to inquire? T.O. and the surrounding areas ain't a bad place to live - they kind of have a Bay area Walnut Creekish kind of vibe.

I used to live in two places near T.O. (yes, I have So Cal blood in me) Ventura and Calabasas. I can't really reccommend Calabasas...unless you're loaded and like tract homes. Calabasas is full of rich Jewish people...and Dr. Dre. He apparently fights with neighbors all the time about loud music, parties, etc. I like to think of it as having the potential to be the greatest reality show ever. It does get nicer as you move up into the Malibu hills, but lordy is it pricey. But I think pretty well of Ventura- nice place.

-martin

ps- please don't take the mention of Jewish people in any weird way. I just wanted to highlight the inherent comedic gold of a town of 28000 Jews and Dr. Dre. I mean- that's funny!

Bada, booom, bang! (you know, like the drums after the joke?!?)

I'm gonna stay away from Amgen for now -- besides not really being as interested in living near Thousand Oaks, startups and small companies tend to be a better cultural fit for me. I may change my mind after I've been job hunting for awhile, though.

Bong, I thing you'd really like the project we're working on right now. I didn't include it on my resume, because it's rather controversial, and the project is very hush-hush. We're developing a genetic engineering protocol to create humans with kangaroo tails. It may be too late for us to have kangaroo tails, but hopefully, (crosses fingers, looks hopefully to sky) it's not too late for the children of tomorrow. Early work in engineering kangaroo tails in C. elegans and Drosophila has been disappointing, but the results we started getting this week in our Spermophilus parryii model show great promise.

Kangaroo tails? That's just retarded.

Have you thought about the Irvine area? Theres all kinds of labs and stuff in that area. Sorry if you already mentioed it, I haven't gotten aroud to reading the last 8 pages yet.

On 2003-06-06 04:05, Futura Girl wrote:
Amgen - that would be a good place to apply - i used to know someone who worked there... want me to inquire? T.O. and the surrounding areas ain't a bad place to live - they kind of have a Bay area Walnut Creekish kind of vibe.

Is that a good thing? Walnut Creek is full of rich yuppie breeders, it's almost all post 1980 homes and architecture, and there is nothing to do. An incredibly boring place to live in my opinion.

At least Thousand Oaks has a Bruce Goff house.

We also have 2 Richard Nuetra designed houses, a Case Study House,and a tract of 100 Eichler built mid-century moderns. There isn't much to do here either, except hiking in the Santa Monica Mountains. I like a beach town, Ventura is a good choice or something in O.C. or S.D. for warmer water and more stuff to do. Lotsa Tiki people down there and cleaner air than L.A. or the Valley. I lived in Calabassas too. Even more boring than T.O. Anyway good luck on your hunt.

On 2003-06-06 12:18, thejab wrote:

On 2003-06-06 04:05, Futura Girl wrote:
Amgen - that would be a good place to apply - i used to know someone who worked there... want me to inquire? T.O. and the surrounding areas ain't a bad place to live - they kind of have a Bay area Walnut Creekish kind of vibe.

Is that a good thing? Walnut Creek is full of rich yuppie breeders, it's almost all post 1980 homes and architecture, and there is nothing to do. An incredibly boring place to live in my opinion.

At least Thousand Oaks has a Bruce Goff house.

Of course, the one thing everyone in the bay area forgets is that Walnut Creek has a tiki bar! Haven't even been myself. However, Tiki Tom's is supposed to be mostly a sprts bar that's overrun with frat guys. They even had their liquor license suspended because they got too rowdy. Though, "too rowdy" may be subjective in Walnut Creek.

I do know a polynesian dance group performs there two fridays a month for happy hour. I will have to go sometime.

On 2003-06-06 16:54, martiki6 wrote:
Of course, the one thing everyone in the bay area forgets is that Walnut Creek has a tiki bar! Haven't even been myself. However, Tiki Tom's is supposed to be mostly a sprts bar that's overrun with frat guys. They even had their liquor license suspended because they got too rowdy. Though, "too rowdy" may be subjective in Walnut Creek.

Myself and a few Tiki Centralites went there a while ago and I was not impressed. The drinks and food were crap, the decor was sterile and bland, the music was reggae (aargh!), and the crowd was lame. Any reason to pay another visit? I can't think of one.