Leaving Michigan, or Holy Crap what am I doing?!?!

            I didn't think I'd be doing this.  I thought I'd be growing old here, watching my kids grow up with the same neighbors and taking pride in being among the few Michigan MBA graduates to actually make a life here.  I thought Fall football Saturday's at the Big House were going to be a staple of my life going forward.  I thought my kids would graduate from the very good and insanely well-appointed Saline High School and then go on to U of M.

            I thought my life would always heavily involve things like Biggby Coffee, TV commercials for Geoffrey Feiger and The law firm of Bernstein, Bernstein, Bernstein, Bernstein, Bernstein, Bernstein, and Bernstein.  I though the following selection of delicious beers would always be easy to find and readily available,

and in the case of Oberon that Oberon day would continue to be a high holy day akin to Opening Day and the first weekend of the NCAA Basketball tournament.

            In other words, I like it in Michigan, I really hate moving, and I had every intention of settling down and building a life here.  Which, when you consider where I am from and where my family lives, is pretty far off the beaten path.  So what changed?

            Alas we live in a world in which Michigan winters suck and having to maintain the mortgage, along with the costs of a sizable daily commute on a reduced salary with one income, didn’t really seem to add up.   In other words, it was time to leave big box consulting behind and with the change in careers comes the need for a change of living location, both to chase more sunlight for my winter-hating wife and to chase a lower cost of living for my wallet. 

            I never saw big box consulting as being a full-time career, in order to make big box consulting a career, you basically have to make partner and to make partner you have to have at least one of two qualities that I do not possess: 1. You have to genuinely love to work and/or 2. You have to be one of life's "winners", those with that rare combination of intelligence, natural charisma, good looks, and a certain amount of luck.  I work hard, but I don’t enjoy it and I also am not of the mindset that twenty reviews is better than say, two or three.  I am also not good-looking, don’t have "cool-guy" charisma and I have the sneaking feeling I burned up my allotment of luck through surviving being a pilot training instructor, finding a great woman to marry me, and having two strong, healthy, beautiful children. 

            This may sound like I'm bitter, I'm not, I lasted four years in that environment with two well regarded firms, which is actually pretty good.  I met great people, had great experiences, and learned a great deal, but it's now time to build some actual expertise and not go through life as a walking Swiss Army knife, or at the very least stay a Swiss Army knife, just with a big main blade(yes, I know what it sounds like; no, I'm not changing the metaphor).  I never really thought my next move would be into health care, but it’s health care supply chain and I can focus on a field that will always have supply challenges and really sharpen my supply chain problem solving skills.

            I am really going to miss Michigan, I genuinely loved it here and will be sad to leave and that is a feeling I'm not sure I've experienced before.  I was miserable on Okinawa and being stuck on an island that was even isolated from mainland Japan without many friends and fully despising my job there(until I was assigned to the 353^rd OSS job which was a godsend) was not exactly a recipe for love of location.  By the time I was riding out the string on Okinawa, most of the people I knew in the Air Force had left the island, I knew a couple of the husbands of Megan's friends, but being a stay at home dad on an island in the middle of nowhere in the Pacific is not a lot of fun.  The time difference between Okinawa and the states was also hard to overcome and I felt isolated and unhappy.  Leaving Okinawa was one of the happiest days of my life, and simultaneously one of Megan's saddest, another testament to how lucky I am that she went ahead and did it anyway.  Before that I lived in Enid, Oklahoma and while there’s a lot I remember fondly, most of those memories revolve around the job, the good friends I had there and the experiences we shared, as for the rest, if I have to explain to you why a young, single guy is happy to leave a small town of 50,000 people that is hours away from the nearest significant population centers………… 
Colorado will always have a special place in my heart, but when I left there I was going on to Pilot Training and the start of a new adventure(and let’s be honest it’s full of Broncos and Avalanche fans).  Leaving Elko had the same feeling, always a special place in my heart, but it was time to go and I was excited to begin life in the Air Force.  So I can’t really say that I have ever felt this nostalgic and melancholy about a move. 

            I think a big part of it was an incredible MBA experience, if it wasn't for Michigan I would not have joined an incredible group of friends that for reasons that would probably baffle most, still refer to ourselves as the "507 crew".  Somehow we forged a legacy of close friendships from our MBA experience that we're all set on maintaining damnit, and it's also led to classic photo opportunities like this:

Yes, that's Logan at age 3 in Michigan colors at a tailgate pumping a keg.  I think part of my reluctance to leave here is wondering if that feeling  of finally really fitting in somewhere with a good group of people who I like and like me will go away.  They always talk about camaraderie in the military, but with the exception of my time as a FAIP at Vance, I don't know that I ever felt the same way as I did in my MBA program. 

We were also blessed to have fantastic neighbors who we clicked with right off the bat and I will always miss sitting in the backyard; drinking and BSing for hours while the kids played.  I hope we have a similar set-up where we’re going, but I just don’t see how it could ever be the same.   

            Michigan, to me, has been a lot of things and I have seen a lot while I have been here, but to an extent it may just be easier to go through a group of photos and then do some free association off of them and somehow, someway this will all turn into a coherent whole, I promise.

The "D"

Evening at Comerica Park(Left) and the view of Belle Isle from the RenCen(Right).

Let's face facts, Detroit does not have a great reputation and to a certain extent seems to try to live in the city's storied past rather than wholeheartedly move to the future.  This will always be a problem here, but it's getting better and the thing is, the city is much better now than even five years ago.  One can go around PARTS of downtown at night and instead of finding a wasteland can find the glimmer of a start of a vibrant scene existing even outside of Tigers, Lions, and Red Wings games.  There's a lot to like about downtown, between the Detroit Athletic Club, the Opera House, the Fox Theatre, and other assorted downtown institutions there is a treasure trove of lovely historical architecture.  The RenCen is in a great location right by the Detroit river and at the heart of downtown, by the Joe Louis fist statue and the Atlas and if you want a somewhat expensive night out has one decent restaurant(Andiamo's) and two great ones.  Venturing out from downtown one encounters things like: Belle Isle(pictured) is larger than Central Park and has some areas that are really beautiful and it's a shame that large portions of it feel like backdrop settings for The Walking Dead.  Then you get to new Detroit businesses such as the Two James distillery and Atwater Brewing going up against such institutions as Slows Bar-B-Q and there is the start of a glimmering of hope.   As you venture further out other treasures are revealed such as the Henry Ford Museum and Motown.  I’ll miss it.

            Then there is the history of the city itself, fascinating, divisive, and THERE, you can feel the weight of the rust belt in the city and even as it begins to revitalize, that weight will likely never fully go away.  Detroit will never be what it was, but it can be better than what it is and the great part about it is that it is doing just that and there are a lot of talented people who want to make it happen and they've been given momentum, may they never drop that ball. 

I suppose in the end, this is part of what attracted me to Michigan so much, there is a lot of pride here, not obnoxious Boston-pride, but it’s there and paired with a distinctive culture.  Coming from Nevada, a land of transplants where there isn’t really a distinctive culture and the pride is more of a prickliness that, yes, Nevada does exist outside of Vegas(for you Non-Nevadans try to contain your shock). I find that Michigan pride to be an attractive thing.  It's also contagious and I have definitely picked some of it up.  Michigan will always be more a part of my identity than Oklahoma or Okinawa ever were and I am grateful for that sense of pride, even as I start trying to figure out the right answer when people ask me where I’m from as just saying Nevada doesn’t feel complete in the way it always used to.

Wolverine Sports

I’m also a huge sports nut and giving up easy access to Michigan sporting events feels physically painful, especially as I’m now going to have to figure out ways to get Logan and Elizabeth to share in my near crippling fandom when it’s hard to get them in the stadium for the “Real Experience”.  It is especially funny that I am leaving as John Beilein is getting the basketball team to the point where it is at least consistently competitive, even if the commanding heights of the National Championship game followed by an elite eight run may be difficult to duplicate and as Jim Harbaugh is getting ready to turn the football team into a rolling monster death machine.  Hockey is a little disappointing right now, but I have every confidence the bones of the program are good and it will survive letting Red go out in the right way.  Still to turn a fall Saturday in Michigan Stadium from an easily accessed event to one requiring a great deal of planning is something I am not especially fond of and I’m trying to figure out what to do about the annual Logan and Dad Christmas break basketball game.  All that said I will figure out ways to ensure I am singing “The Victors” with 100,000 of my closest friends at least once a year.  Doing the “Sieve” chant at an opposing goalie after a Michigan goal, and bounce up and down wildly making noise in Chrysler as the opposing point guard drives the floor on a crucial possession will also happen, just not a yearly basis anymore.  I’m also going to have to make an adjustment to talking sports with a group of people who don’t share the same or at least similar rooting interests.  Being able to talk about the Wolverines, the Lions, Red Wings, and Tigers was a given and now I am going to have to enter into territories in which I will share a general knowledge of the teams, but not the same passion and that certainly feels like a loss.

Saline Estates

It’s always hard to say goodbye to the house you lived in for four years, especially when it was one in which a lot of happy memories were formed.  We had amazing neighbors who became like family, the kids had tons of room to run around and play and made friends all over the neighborhood.  While I think the dangers that Oprah and the Today show have moms across the country in a frenzy over are VASTLY over-stated, it was nice to be able to let the kids out and run around and know they would be fine, which is not always replicable in other places.  I’m going to miss late nights around the firepit, nature walks with the kids around the pond and on the trail through the woods, letting off fireworks and shooting the replica cannon in the pond area, Flamingo Fridays, and many, many more things that make up memories I will always treasure.

The new destination

            Once I decided to seek a new opportunity, I went on an insane job hunting odyssey that I never want to repeat again.  One thing that became clear in the haze of rejection notices was that my skills were valued, but that the current job market currently highly prizes specific experience, rather than experience that can be relevant if you squint really hard.  I got a little discouraged but it was a hard lesson about how desirable my profile really was.  So that certainly shaped one aspect of my choice of where to go. 

            When Megan and I decided to relocate we wanted to satisfy at least most of the following conditions: Cheaper cost of living, warmer weather, lots of stuff to do both indoors and outdoors in the local area, closer to family in the west and large enough to have opportunities down the line so we never have to move again.  It’s a big list and we knew we couldn’t make all of them happen, but figured as long as we hit all but one we would be doing okay.  As it happens that is exactly what we did. 

            I had two defined job offers at the end of the road.  One for a local consulting company in Seattle, which had some great folks in the office and I easily saw myself working for them and one for an internal consulting division of a private hospital chain in Nashville, TN on the supply chain team.  It was difficult decision as Seattle is close to home and a ton of friends and family(and friends who are like family) live there, but the deciding factor was that the job in Nashville would allow me to leverage my consulting background while building expertise in Health care supply chain with the backing of a large company while the Seattle job would have been more generalist and it’s time for me to stop being so well-rounded I’m pointless.

            Growing up I never considered for a second that I would live East of the Mississippi and now I can’t seem to get to the West of the damn thing.  I also never thought I’d end up south of the Mason-Dixon line and in the Confederacy.  Yet if I’m going to end up anywhere, being in a place where I can easily get to the Great Smoky mountains, go kayaking in the river by my neighborhood, and enjoy a somewhat short drive to a ton of different cities and states is kind of nice.  So it’s official I am about to become a carpetbagger, damn Yankee, dirty damn Northerner, and a ton of other fun and yet to be discovered epithets.  I can’t wait.