In speaking with a friend today, the topic of the famous Sunscreen speech came up. One of my favorite lines of the speech is to live in New York, but leave before you become too hard, and live in Northern California, but leave before you become too soft. I think about that a lot being in Oregon.
I like to think I’m pretty laid back. And when I told a good friend I was moving to Oregon, he remarked that he thought how well I would do there because I’m so laid back. “It’s a slower lifestyle†people would tell me. That sounded perfect after a couple years in Orange County. OC is a fast paced lifestyle where you have to keep on the financial treadmill just to maintain some dignity by driving the right car or living in the right place. Growing up there I had seen that first hand, but somehow didn’t appreciate the stress that it would cause me as adult. As a teenager, my years in Laguna Beach were some of the best of my life. But as an adult, Orange County was putting me in an early grave.
I didn’t make the move lightly. I had first heard about Ashland in 2001 through a TechTV segment on the Ashland Fiber Network, the towns self-owned Internet service that had full fiber connections going to homes. “It’s like have a T1 line to every home†was the idea. At that point I was living in Silicon Valley and drowning from the imploded bubble of the dotcom’s. I was very receptive to the idea that 4 hours away there was a great town where houses cost a quarter of the homes in my area, the schools were top notch (the public schools, not the $40k per year schools that were good in my area), and was growing with a tech community. I did some research, and even followed up on a couple potential jobs. But in the end I decided to retreat to Arizona, where prices were cheap, companies still hiring people with my experience, and I had what little family I had left.
A couple moves later and I found myself back in Orange County. It had been my desire to return since the day I left. But somehow it didn’t feel the same. I was older, fatter, and somehow it seemed I was a little poorer. The weather was great, the shopping and dining were good, and the people were more familiar to me, but that’s about all.
The main problem I was having was that my son didn’t seem happy. His school was crap. The standard issues of So. California schools like overcrowding, many students not speaking English, and what appeared to be an escalating school violence issue. Adding to that issue that my search for a home lead me to the conclusion that an entry level house in an acceptable area would start at $850k, I started giving things some thought.
I took a drive up to Ashland, OR. to check things out. The town was as described; beautiful, quiet, quaint, etc… The people seemed very friendly and the home prices were about 40% cheaper on average when compared to houses I was looking at. The thing about Ashland is that there are no real bad areas. The whole town is overpriced when compared to Medford. If you live in California, the best way to describe it is like a cross between the community of Irvine, with the artsy feel of Laguna Beach. A few days after my return, someone firebombed a car near our home. The decision was made to move.
I took one more trip up to Ashland to check out rental houses before we moved. I checked out several before having the luck of running into a nice couple that was selling their home, Art and Kay. Art and Kay are very much the typical Ashland couple, despite the fact that they didn’t live hear yet. Both educators from Northern California who owned a couple of rental homes in Ashland. They loved visiting, and they planned to retire here. After a couple weeks of communication, Art let me know that they had just purchased what would be their retirement home, and they would be happy to have me as a renter for that home while they finished up in Northern California. I took a look at the house and it looked perfect for what we needed short term. The house has an incredible view, big enough for everyone, and was in decent shape for the age. We made the move and things went almost (spent almost a month living at the Holiday Inn waiting for the old home owner to vacate) smoothly.
So I have now been in Ashland for about 18 months. People often ask me how I like it, and I tell them the truth. I hate it! Don’t get me wrong, Ashland is a very peaceful, beautiful town. And I was aware that I would be giving up a certain lifestyle. There is no Best Buy, no Apple store, and I would have to leave the delicious taste of Jamba Juice on the beach behind me. That’s way okay. But what I didn’t take into account was the meaning behind living at a “slower pace†. For starters, that means that no one here gives a crap about how well they do their jobs.
We call the pool guy to get the pool ready for summer. He says he’ll be out on Tuesday. Tuesday comes, no pool guy, no phone call from pool guy. Wednesday evening the pool guy comes and says he will be here Thursday, no problem. Thursday comes, no pool guy, no call from pool guy. Saturday at 3:30 pm, the pool guy shows up unannounced and needs us to walk him through the pool issues.
I bring my car in to be detailed. The guy seems nice enough, and when I pick up the car, it looks okay. I ask him what wax they used, he doesn’t share that with me. I ask him what they used on the chrome, no real reply. So I do some research and try some products out myself. My wax job comes out much better than what they did. So, I ask them if they have tried the products I used. He had never even heard of them. So, I dropped off the products the next time I had the car detailed and asked him to use them. They did, but I don’t think they used the wax properly because it didn’t have the shine like when I did it. I know this seems petty, but honestly if I brought my car to be detailed in Newport Beach, they would be using some hand made wax that the Nazi’s created to make their Aryan super cars more shinny. And it wouldn’t be a big deal if this was an isolated occurrence.
Restaurants in the area are also not really big believers in the “service†part of “food service†. I have usually been pretty laid back in restaurants, but the places here seem to expect you to have infinite patience and understanding. It’s no unusual for them to bring the appetizers our with the meal, or forget your salad, or no offer a refill the entire meal. They also seem to run out of things at an alarming pace. And then you have the places that decided to close down one or two days per week. And why wouldn’t they chose a Sunday to close. That just makes sense. I mean, who goes out to eat on the weekends, right? The one usual exception to this is McGrath’s in Medford. Not exactly fine dining, it’s about 1 or 2 steps above Red Lobster, but they do seem to believe in good service.
Oh, and that great Internet service I spoke of. The thing that got me interested in Ashland in the first place…this is the ultimate in incompetence and bad service. First I can’t get a call back from them. It ends up that the people who started the service bailed after the town politicians started adding their two cents. The whole thing is now run by one of the biggest losers I have ever seen in business, Richard Holbo. The guy doesn’t call me back for over two weeks. And when I finally catch him at his desk, I ask him if I can get the AFN fiber service at my rental house (this is before I agreed to rent it), and he said yes. But when I call him back later to schedule installation, he then tells me I can’t. I’m now too far out. My complaints ended up catching the ear of the local paper who did a story on how I moved here with my family, and was looking at relocating USWeb here based partially on AFN’s performance, and they screwed me right out of the gate. The best part is when they reach Richard Holbo, he tells them he and I talked and that I was now satisfied! So, Holbo is not just incompetent, he is a liar. Keep in mind that AFN was set up to help the schools and the community with the money it would bring in. but because of Richard Hobo and the incompetent politicians, AFN loses money every year. Imagine that; a high speed ISP losing money for the past 4 years! Insane.
I could go on and one about the service issues in town, and anyone who speaks to me on a regular basis knows that I do, but there is no point. The problems I see in Ashland are what happens when a town is too soft. I get not letting the little things get to you. But life is often made up of many little things, and when they are all going bad, things start to go down hill in a big way. Ashland is a place that is soft. They don’t worry about how well they do their jobs, they don’t concern themselves with the big picture, and because of that, the town is in peril. AFN is losing money and will continue to do so until the town just lets’ it die. The county libraries all closed down because the politicians can’t agree on how to pay for them, and no one here wants to pay for anything.
Barack Obama says that Republican’s have no compassion, and that liberals have no sense of reality. Ashland is definitely the example of the later.
I could go on and one about the service issues in town, and anyone who speaks to me on a regular basis knows that I do, but there is no point. The problems I see in Ashland are what happens when a town is too soft. I get not letting the little things get to you. But life is often made up of many little things, and when they are all going bad, things start to go down hill in a big way. Ashland is a place that is soft. They don’t worry about how well they do their jobs, they don’t concern themselves with the big picture, and because of that, the town is in peril. AFN is losing money and will continue to do so until the town just lets’ it die. The county libraries all closed down because the politicians can’t agree on how to pay for them, and no one here wants to pay for anything. Barack Obama says that Republican’s have no compassion, and that liberals have no sense of reality. Ashland is definitely the example of the later.
So with this rant I’m sure everyone thinks I will be moving. The truth is I would love to, but I can’t. I made my son a promise when we got here. I promised that we would stay here through the rest of his school. So unless I can convince him to drop out of school at eighth grade, I’m stuck here for a while. I’m even buying a house here soon. But I am convinced that I’m moving to Las Vegas or something. Any place with Best Buys, Jamba Juice, etc…
Not everyone is unhappy here. My son doesn’t claim to be thrilled here. He misses having things like Dave & Busters, and Disneyland nearby. He can’t find a video game made this century in any of the arcades here. But he is doing well in school and seems to have made a lot of friends. And I do have to say that with the exception of one lazy teacher who is obviously burnt out, our experience with the schools here have been overwhelmingly good.
I asked my physical therapist how she liked Ashland. She had moved here two years ago from San Francisco with her husband. She said she loved it. I asked here what she did in San Francisco…she was a Yoga instructor. And that is it right there. If you are a Yoga instructor from San Francisco who enjoys hiking, Ashland is like heaven. If you’re someone whose hobbies include playing poker, going to clubs and sopping for overpriced toys…like I said, I’m moving to Vegas.
[tags]ashland, oregon, mcgraths, richard holbo, sunscreen, orange county[/tags]
