Location, Location, Location

Things are moving very slowly.

We spoke with our main consultant, the one who will know our situation inside and out and will be our main source of information.

She wants us to start narrowing our desired location down.

That is a tough thing to do.

We only have a vague area of the world in mind, yet she wants us to start looking at communities.

I'd be happy if we decided on a city.

We want to relocate from the SE USA to the Pacific Northwest.

Why?

Simple reasons.

That part of the country is closer to family. A lot closer.

This is important to us. Probably the most important reason to relocate. We want to be able to visit family, have family visit us without it being an ordeal. Just hop in a car or on a plane and be there quickly.

That part of the country suits us more. We love the outdoors and will spend weekends hiking/camping. The people in the NW are more our style - more laid back. We encountered a lot less attitude when we were living over there. Here. Everyone is important and is aghast when you don't bow to their importance. There. Everyone is more of a regular Joe.

The Pacific Northwest is a large area.

We need to narrow it down.

The first thing that narrows our search down is that there are two of us. Two optometrists. It will be very difficult to find a rural community that can support two brand new optometrists so we're limiting our search to more metropolitan areas.

Also I'm looking for opportunities outside of optometry that are more available in metropolitan areas. So we're basically looking in the greater Portland area as well as the greater Seattle area.

Why not Spokane? Ummm... yeah. We're not big fans of Spokane. My micro bus broke down outside of Spokane forcing my brother and I to wander around Spokane looking for something to do. We ended up at the library.

The library.

We were then stopped at the Canadian border and searched.

Searched.

Even though amongst them many stickers on my bus I had a drug free sticker.

Swell and I interviewed for a job in Seattle shortly after graduation as well. One of our first experiences with an optometric interview.

Most interviews in the world of optometry center around the hiring optometrist bragging about how successful they are. Rarely they will ask you a question. Even more rarely is the question about your skills or interests.

Our interviewer in Spokane was quite conservative and very outspoken about his political aspirations. We, on the other hand, are politically liberal (but socially conservative - another dichotomy) and not into seeing 8 patients an hour so we passed on that opportunity. Or more accurately he passed on us.

Thank God.

So that leaves Seattle and Portland.

When I say Seattle I mean the Greater Puget Sound area and all the way south to Tacoma

And when I say Portland I mean the Greater Portland area including Vancouver, WA, Beaverton, Gresham etc.

Why these two cities?

Federal Way (Greater Puget Sound area) is home to World Vision and I wouldn't mind working for them. There shouldn't be much trouble finding enough work in the area to support two optometrists and we just really like that part of the country. Although we have never lived further north than Vancouver, Washington (since we've been married. We've both technically lived further north than that but that is another story) we have spent a fair amount of time in the Seattle area and have always enjoyed our time there. We also have friends in that part of the world and as I've said before family is nearby.

Our consultant has basically nixed any hopes for Seattle-Seattle saying due to the cost of living that it is very difficult to make a go of it there. So if we want to do Seattle-Seattle it will be via a practice purchase. (If you're selling a practice in that part of the world message me. I'm interested.)

So we'll be looking South of Seattle.

We're open to just about anywhere in the Portland area and are certain we can support ourselves (i.e. pick up work outside our practice especially with Pacific University being so close). Medical Teams international is also in the Portland area and I could be happy working there.

So we're in the process of narrowing our search down. If you have a practice for sale in the general area we're looking let us know.

We're also in the process of contacting a couple of commercial realtors to get the feel of the areas from a business standpoint because we may love the area but if it can't support us there's really no point in going there.

So that's where we stand.

We're not very far into this at all but as everyday passes at our good for nothing jobs we're more and more anxious to pack up our lives and leave this town. And we're more and more excited about heading out on our own.