[MLUG - DISCUSSION] greetings from Maryland

["Jonathan King" <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

One of the more interesting things about MLUG is the incredibly loose
interpretation of the name of the organization.  "M" is supposed to
stand for "Mizzou"...but in reality, it's more like "people who were
probably at one time associated with Mizzou, or maybe who just lived
at one time or another in Central Missouri".  Without warning any of
you, I have just moved from the first group to the second group.  On
or about July 4, my family and I moved from Columbia, Missouri to
Potomac, Maryland, after I had accepted an offer to start working for
the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda.  I made the move for a
number of reasons which, if you are truly interested, you can ask me
about in private email.

To head off some of that:

1) Yes, I'm getting paid more.
2) Yes, there's a greater opportunity for career advancement.
3) Yes, there are better educational opportunities for my children.
4) Yes, housing costs here are extremely high.  I'm paying more rent
than I ever have in my life, but there are certain benefits connected
to this.  To choose three of these at random, my sixth grader will be
able to take Chinese as a foreign language this September; I can see
amazing artwork in less than an hour for just the transportation cost,
and I have already blundered across one of the largest and most
amazing used bookstore on the planet, located about 3 miles from my
house.  Yet, I can still ride my bike to work.
5) Oh yeah, there are definitely things I will miss about Columbia.
In particular, lunch around here is essentially a chore since it takes
too long to get off campus to where the food is actually somewhat
decent, so I'm going to have to brownbag it for maybe a really long
time.  For that matter, being a Fed, there are now many things I
really can't do any more, and that will take some getting used to; you
have no idea how restrictive ethics regulations can be until you swear
that oath.

In any case, that's the current situation, in case you were wondering
where I was.

jking

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