This week, Erika got her official class date for air traffic control training. She reports for duty in Oklahoma City, OK on November 8th. We’ll be driving the Jeep cross-country in the first week of November so she can have a car there. I’ll fly back to Miami Beach and stay here through the end of her training in February. At that point, we’ll both move to Houston, where she’ll be stationed.
I’ll miss a lot of things about Miami, especially Miami Beach: driving home on Friday afternoons past the cruise ships, parking the car, and getting around by foot all weekend. Living here makes jogging easy, as evidenced by the mounting numbers on my NikePlus web site gadget. My marathon training is progressing along nicely - did 7 miles today.
I will not miss Miami’s absurd housing costs. Erika and I ran the numbers repeatedly, and there was just no way we could afford to buy a place here. I’ve seen a couple of recent transplant workers buy hilariously overpriced half-million-dollar houses that would barely fetch $150k in the Houston market, but salaries between the two cities seem identical.
After being in Miami for so long, Houston looks dirt cheap. I’ve been surfing the Houston MLS and drooling over lofts. See sample loft #1 and sample loft #2. We’ve been furiously punching our calculators to see if we can make it work, and it all depends on how my job goes.
I’m working with the folks at Southern Wine to see if I can telecommute from Houston. My fingers are crossed, but the company doesn’t exactly embrace that concept - yet. I’m not giving up easily because I’ve done telecommuting for years, and I know how to make it work. Worst case scenario, I end up doing consulting for them. I wasn’t eager to start consulting again after my horrible gig with Adjoined, but if I was calling the shots on the client relationship, I think I’d have a different perspective.
