Would you consider this a risky move?

[packrat44]

Oh my gosh that's quite a list of acronyms. They really do need "AFU" (Acronyms Frequently Used). Gack.

I can certainly understand industry specific terms like CFP (Certified Financial Planner), but should it require a secret decoder ring to read the forum? -DJ

Thanks for clarifying CFP. I thought it meant Country Fried Potatoes.

 

[Achiever51]

CHP = Cocktail Hour Post.

Well, waddaya know...and here all this time I thought it meant California Highway Patrol or something. Suddenly some of these other posts make a little more sense

 

[chinaco]

Ah yes.... the Hawaii dream.

Sounds like a nice idea. I entertain the same thoughts and I am 10 years older than you.

DW want to stay in the mid-west (family)... But who says we can't go for 3-6 months


On ER... We are at the edge of my comfort zone for planned expenditures (lower end of range). So I am feeling like I need to stick with w*rk for a few more years. But I do have short-timers calendar. Everytime I want to scream at w*rk... I look at it and say to myself "serenity now" (for you Seinfeld fans).

 

[DangerMouse]

Thanks again for the input.

Mango rash, hmm I have never mastered the art of eating these in a non-messy way. Normally you will find me slobbering over a mango over the sink to make clean up a lot easier.

I do see moving to Hawaii as being doable for us. It's not going to happen in the next few months as we need to position ourselves for such a move, but DH was thrilled when I sent him a link for one of the canoe clubs looking for paddlers as that is something he really wants to do.

When we do get there, I'll give you guys that are local a shout out.

Chicano, life is too short, if it is what your heart cries out for, go for it.

 

[W2R]

Thanks again for the input.

Mango rash, hmm I have never mastered the art of eating these in a non-messy way. Normally you will find me slobbering over a mango over the sink to make clean up a lot easier.

Mango rash is a mild allergy/sensitivity to mangos that results in an itchy rash, that a substantial percentage of people in Hawaii seem to develop when they eat too many mangos for too long. I get it, but not when I eat just 1-2 mangos/week. When I lived there, and people would give me baskets of fresh mangos from their gardens sometimes, I would eat too many (dozens a week is too many for me) and develop the rash. Then I would have to back off on the mangos for a while. There are worse afflictions in life than having to limit oneself to only 1-2 utterly heavenly mangos in a week, though!

Some people get mango rash if they just LOOK at a mango, and others happily eat dozens with no problems.

 

[Milton]

It's worth living here for 4-8 weeks before making the moving decision. People either love it here or they hate it, and after that time period you'll know which category you fall into.

Sometimes longer! IIRC Nords, your parents-in-law lived in Hawaii for quite a long time before they decided they actually hated it: five years or something crazy like that?

 

[Nords]

Mango rash, hmm I have never mastered the art of eating these in a non-messy way. Normally you will find me slobbering over a mango over the sink to make clean up a lot easier.

Standing naked in the shower...

Mango rash is a mild allergy/sensitivity to mangos that results in an itchy rash, that a substantial percentage of people in Hawaii seem to develop when they eat too many mangos for too long. I get it, but not when I eat just 1-2 mangos/week.

... because that's where you'll be anyway if you get the tree's fresh sap on your skin.

Some people suffer the rash just from the smoke of burning green mango wood. I've learned to avoid the sap (pick 'em with work gloves) and to scrub the mango skins (with Dawn, not just rinse) before putting them in the fridge.

I believe that the only effective treatment for mango rash is mango dacquiris, although it's proven difficult to design a good double-blind control study with sufficient numbers. But I'll keep slaving away on it.

Sometimes longer! IIRC Nords, your parents-in-law lived in Hawaii for quite a long time before they decided they actually hated it: five years or something crazy like that?

In general I would recommend doing the opposite of any example set by my parents-in-law.

In their specific case they said they came to Hawaii "to watch their only grandchild grow up". Which she did, turning into a teenager. So they moved back. Today that whole six-year phase seems like a bad dream, kinda like the old season's plot of that nighttime soap opera.

I think my PILs would have great difficulty acculturating anywhere other than the South Bronx (their Depression adolescence) or a 30-mile radius of Washington DC. They were flummoxed by nearly every single one of the issues that DangerMouse will have no trouble with, and every one of those issues surfaced within a couple months.

 

[BunsGettingFirm]

I guess I'm biased, because on our one-week trips to Hawaii (just got back from one yesterday), we always think "Great place to visit, but we could never, ever live there."

Just to take the devil's advocate position, you are considering someplace that is hot, crowded, and expensive in order to pursue activities that you haven't done much of yet, think will be important enough to you to base a major life decision on, and can be done in many other places.

I second Al's opinion in that time rather than place is probably the number one factor on your ability to pursue or resume hobbies. With that said, for certain activities such as cycling, you can't beat California and Colorado. The roads are there, and the culture is there. However, having based major moves based in small part on pursuing cycling adventures, I can say that while satisfying, even a lifestyle hobby such as cycling isn't going to sustain my interest if other parts of my life aren't living up to my expectations for the simple reason that even I ride for 6 hours a day, what the heck am I supposed to do with the other 18?

As interesting as the water sports the original poster listed are, I'd bet that she can't do these 24x7 either, so make sure you like the place you plan to move to for something other than the sporting activities you can do there.

 

[DangerMouse]

You know everyone seems so hung up about the availablity of "culture". I couldn't give a rats about the lack of culture. If I am not participating in water sports I would rather be reading a book or watching TV. Yep, I know that is not very cultured of me, but I find going to an art gallery or listening to a symphony dead boring. Unlike most of my peers, I hate going to concerts, I can't stand the crowds and people using the occasion as an excuse for bad behaviour. I'm probably one of the few people in this world who finds New York to be so totally over rated because I don't see what the big deal is about their cultural activities.

Having grown up in a small country beach town with absolutely nothing to do, I know how to amuse myself. We had 2 tv channels, the nearest city was 100 miles away and it may as well have been 1,000 because transportation was limited, we had to entertain ourselves.

 

[BunsGettingFirm]

You know everyone seems so hung up about the availablity of "culture". I couldn't give a rats about the lack of culture. If I am not participating in water sports I would rather be reading a book or watching TV. Yep, I know that is not very cultured of me, but I find going to an art gallery or listening to a symphony dead boring. Unlike most of my peers, I hate going to concerts, I can't stand the crowds and people using the occasion as an excuse for bad behaviour. I'm probably one of the few people in this world who finds New York to be so totally over rated because I don't see what the big deal is about their cultural activities.

Having grown up in a small country beach town with absolutely nothing to do, I know how to amuse myself. We had 2 tv channels, the nearest city was 100 miles away and it may as well have been 1,000 because transportation was limited, we had to entertain ourselves.

This is a strange turn of events. I re-read the entire thread, and I see discussion about eating mangoes in the nude (Nords), local problems, traffic, finding work, and culture (cycling culture as in lots of races and people to ride with, not symphony culture), surfing, etc. Who mentioned the symphony?

 

[Rambler]

I'm with T-Al...we go to Hawaii a couple times a year for a variety of personal and sometimes business reasons. At one point, we even considered moving the family there while I commuted back and forth from all sorts of places in Asia (it made sense with my job responsibilities at the time). After a while though, we figured out it was a great place to visit, but probably could not live there. I think once our junior consumers are out of the house and on their own, we could perhaps do it, but probably will just stick the the "visit once in a while" approach. We are going this week, BTW.

R