Change

For the first thirty-five years of my life, I’d never been east of Cheyenne, Wyoming.  And never wanted to be.  Because, as we westerners ALL know, the east is dirty, filthy, crowded, and more or less entirely made of concrete and smoke.  Right?

Sure.  In some places, here and there, you absolutely WILL find the stereotypical east coast neighborhoods.  Gotta be a REASON for the stereotype, right?  But here’s what NOBODY told me — once you get a couple of miles outside of any one of those urban areas, it’s BEAUTIFUL.  Green, lush, shady, awesome. 

But I didn’t go from the one extreme (east coast SUCKS!!) to the other (western US is a DUSTBOWL, mang!) in one trip.  It was a slow build, for sure.

My first trip was work-related, in 2006.  Potomac, Maryland.  Out in the country.  We landed at Reagan National Airport, and I got to see those iconic Washington, DC monuments and memorials from the air.  Impressive, but still — dirty, cityish, gross.  As the cab drove from the airport and through the countryside to Potomac, I couldn’t get over how GREEN everything was, though.  Ginormous trees that were themselves festooned with vines and other plants.  Riotous would be a good word here.  So yeah, impressed as I was, and as much as I LOVED the time I got to spend in “the city” on that trip, the idea of ever actually LIVING there was pretty ludicrous.

In 2007, I got to go back to Washington and actually stay RIGHT DOWNTOWN at the Sofitel on Fifteenth and H.  I was there for a training class for work, but I was left with PLENTY of time to explore the city at night.  I walked ALL OVER EVERYWHERE, from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial and back, discovering on my own the Korean War Memorial (I had never heard of it) and the World War I Memorial, which is kind of hidden.  I had an amazingly stupid moment where I stared up at the dome that tops the memorial at the words (I’m paraphrasing here) Dedicated to the Washington DC Boys Killed in the World War.  And I thought, “Which one?”  Duh.  In the space of five days, I cruised five of the nineteen Smithsonian museums, ate exotic foods such as sweet potato fries and grilled endive, and learned all about some software I was using at work.

Later that year, we all took an epic three-week vacation that ranged from Philly to Worcester (my Utah peeps can have forty-five minutes here to argue about pronunciation, but just remember — it’s WUH-stuh.  DehyaGO!) to Maine to (reluctantly) Jersey to even Canada, a little bit.  Aside from some VERY funny stories about a general inability to follow instructions or people in traffic, the trip was AMAZING.  I was especially struck by the bucolic unbelievability of the Finger Lakes in upstate New York and, really, Vermont in general.  This trip was far more immersive and started the process of melting my resolve to never leave Ogden.

The following year (2008, if you’re keeping score at home), we repeated the same vacation, more or less, but with only the Missus and me, the boy, and his two cousins.  Bliss.  I can’t even describe how indescribably wonderful that trip was.  Another work trip a couple months later, again to Potomac, and finally the decision was made.  I was talking to the missus on the phone, I’d had maybe one or two more beers than I was used to, and we decided it was time to start looking for a job in Philly or DC and get our asses east.

Long story short, after nearly three years, we’re here.  We made it.  I now work on the same floor where my training class in 2007 was held, as a Customer Solutions Specialist for that very software program the training class had trained me for.  This is a framework, but there are DOZENS of stories that are all tied into this main narrative, and that’s what I’m going to try to talk about in the next little while here.  But welcome, all my pretties (I think I have like, THREE followers here) to this next stage of my grand adventure.  So much about my life is different now, but I’m still pretty much the same.  Hope you’ll enjoy some laughs at my expense as I relate some of the more ridiculous ways we got here.

Cheers!
Tommy (the REAL one)