As I have mentioned in recent weeks, my relocation gap in Vegas (a no-cause non-renewal notice surprised me after eight years in the same place, found a new place the day after I received said notice, but not available until, well, 19 October or some 50 days or so beyond the end of the egress notice) made an extended visit to Phoenix to stay with my parents and hang out a bit as my dad continues his recovery and they continued to hem and haw about the third Pfizer booster (going Wednesday this week), seem like a reasonable idea. It mostly was, but I have to say, I do not like Phoenix.
Back in the summer of 2001, I had been in Silicon Valley for eight years (is this a thing with me?) and I decided that rather than deal with the dramatic downturn in the post-dot-com era of craziness, I would take my winnings (I never did get the IPO riches, but I had money in the bank) and head back to where I had grown up, selecting an area that was literally rocks and dust back then, in Phoenix, Arizona.
My college roommate and sometimes-colleague in silly valley, Kevin, helped me move the bulk of my stuff in June of 2001, into this new spot that was cheaper and 2x or maybe 2.5x as large as where I was in Sunnyvale (we had rented a house together). When we arrived in a 24-foot truck laden with most of the things I had acquired over those eight years, Phoenix was having a “cold spell” at around 96F or so. Kevin, born and raised in Hawaii, was almost disappointed that it was reasonably warm for his first Phoenix visit in June.
On the day we were headed back to Sunnyvale, we had lunch with another college friend of ours and the temperature gauge in his VW Passat read 118F. There was Kevin and his ah ha moment about Phoenix in June. I would go on to live in that place I had rented for four long and fruitless years, because my hopes and dreams of remote consulting on my silly valley credentials upon wrapping up my contract with Leap Frog and finishing my move in August of 2001, evaporated wholly and completely 11 days into September, as I awoke to Howard Stern describing what was happening at WTC.
There is probably a longer blog entry to be written about some of that time spent, before Phoenix became the same place it had been but with a few more tech companies. Maybe a few entries. Suffice to say for now that I am looking forward to getting back to the cooler temperatures (true story) and familiar surroundings that await me back home.