So it’s a day after Christmas and I am almost out of work. The contract I have ends soon and I have been working on landing a job overseas. The pay should be very good and the opportunities that taking this job might open up in the future could result in allowing me to become a bit of a world traveler/employee. Of course if there is a world left after 2012. This Christmas has been a quiet one and it gave me a chance to see just how distant people are in this part of the country that I live in. I have heard many people who aren’t from here say that this is one of the most unfriendly parts of the U.S. that they have ever lived in and my experiences are beginning to fall in line with that way of thinking. It’s a beautiful part of the country but the people here are pretty hard to connect with. The Seattle freeze seems to be alive and well here in the pacific northwest. It’s rated as having some of the most intelligent people, has one of the highest suicide rates and is one of the rainiest places in the world. No wonder people are not very gregarious, it’s wet and grey a lot here except for a short summer and we know it. The summers are some of the mildest and pleasant you can find in America but like many of the locals…it’s lukewarm. Even the winter has been lukewarm, not to cold not too warm just kind of blah. Again, like the people here…non-commital…just blah.
It is with these things in mind that I consider traveling to an extreme both in my choice of working environment and place to call home for a while. I don’t expect to make many friends but I will try. I expect that escaping the Pacific Northwest for a time might allow me to see things differently. I might realize that it really is a great place to live. I might find that people here are no different than anywhere else..I doubt that will be true. In fact if you travel much you can see it clearly at airports and particularly centrally located airports. Just make a note of the attitudes of the majority of passengers boarding most any given airline destined for Seattle International Airport…many of them are grumpy and rude. I think it’s no different for us humans than it is for reptiles. What I mean is that I had a green Iguana and I was unable to properly care for it. It lived for a long while in my care but the requirements to properly care for such an animal are definite. They need a certain amount of light…the right kind of light or they will become grumpy and ill…just like Pacific Northwesterners. It’s been said that no one knows why the disease of Multiple Sclerosis is so prevelant here in the northwest…based on my unfounded but rather speculative oberservations of my reptile pets and the lighting requirements they have, I think it’s the light we are exposed to here.
So I am pursuing a career in what I will refer to for now as the Sandbox. It’s very hot and dry and I will see what this adventure becomes. Because this is my personal blog, I have written about my 20 years of experience here in the northwest with many of the locals. This isn’t to say they are all this way but a majority of them are. I don’t care about responses in defense of why people here are the way they are…I just don’t care anymore and the majority of the defenders I have seen elsewhere for similar arguments are those who have never lived anywhere else for any real length of time. If you are one of my friends and/or you don’t fall under my generalized description of the grumpy northwesterner…I am happy to call you friend.
Rowland Ramble - 