Flee To Philly

So far, 2007 has been a year of big changes for our family. But there is no doubt that the biggest change has been the decision to leave metropolitan Detroit and relocate to the Philadelphia area in early February.

Leaving Michigan was a difficult decision to make. I had been a resident of the Great Lakes State for nearly 12 years, and Jena had lived there for seven (plenty of time to get accustomed to winter driving). We had our courtship there, got engaged there, and got married there. We put down roots in Oakland County - we bought our first house in Royal Oak, joined a great church in Ferndale, and both worked in Pontiac. We had friendly neighbors that we cared about. Both of our boys were born at Beaumont Hospital. Jena had won several state journalism awards. We had travelled all over the state (some of our favorite places were Mackinac Island, Frankenmuth, Silver Lake, Point Aux Barques, and Traverse City). And although we had no family in Michigan, we had made many good friends in the state over the years. It was very hard to leave and start over.

But, the economy in Detroit was terrible in late 2006. I had lost my job in September and was struggling to find another one. In mid-December, a friend passed along the information that a software company in suburban Philadelphia was hiring. A few weeks (and three interviews) later, that company offered me a job at a very generous salary. It was hard to imagine another company in the Detroit area offering me the same amount of money. There was a lot of uncertainty at the time about the future of the economy in Detroit. Ford, GM and Chrysler were all having problems. Even the newspaper where Jena was working was laying off people left and right. Many companies were going out of business. The news was full of stories of people leaving for other cities (although Philadelphia was not usually mentioned as a destination). And the metro Detroit area was leading the nation in foreclosures. We came to the conclusion that although it would be hard to leave Michigan, maybe it was the right move.

In January, we put our Royal Oak house on the market. We then drove out to Philadelphia to look for an apartment. The quest for the perfect apartment there is worthy of a separate blog post, which I will write in the next few days.

Natën e mirë,
Charlie =)

To whomever is out there ... welcome

Well ... here we are.

Sorry. I'm not exactly sure how to start this thing off. I guess I'm still skeptical about the whole blog-as-entertainment concept. I've been resistant to the idea of getting involved with a blog ever since I first heard of people creating them. I kept thinking, "why would anyone want to spend their time reading some stranger's online blather about things that, frankly, aren't particularly unique, exciting or interesting? Don't people have better things to do with their time? And the people who write these blogs - do they think they're special or something?"

I still harbor these doubts. But within the last two days, I've had two good friends of mine from out of state tell me that I should consider starting a blog to help keep them abreast of what I'm up to. And, of course, what's new with my wife and two boys.

So, I've thrown apprehension to the wind and have started this blog. This is it. "Black Sox Nation," I call it. Why that name? Well, if you know me well enough, you know that I am a fantasy sports nut - especially with baseball. For almost every year that I've had a team, that team has been named the "Kodiak Black Sox." The Kodiak part isn't real important to explain here, and Nation was added to be in the same vein as "Red Sox Nation." If you don't know what THAT means, you need to stop right now and look it up. Shame.

But before we go too far along on this journey together, we need to come to an agreement on some things, to allay these concerns I still have about blogging:

(1) If you're here, and you're spending your time reading this, thank you. I'm very flattered that you are here reading my stories. I know your time is valuable, so I promise to make my stories as unique, exciting, and interesting as the law will allow.

(2) I don't think that I'm special because I have a blog. I'm not doing it to gain popularity or notoriety. I'm not interested in being famous. I don't have any delusions about this thing being published as a best selling novel someday. It's not for that. It's for keeping in touch. It's for sharing. And it's for fun.

(3) When writing this blog stops being fun for me and becomes more of a chore, you can rest assured that I will stop writing it and move on to something else. I'm sure there are some folks who use their old TRS-80s every day because they love that tiny monochromatic screen, and get a real rush from running their fingertips across the black, flat keys designed by the great minds at Radio Shack. Creepy? You bet. But it's someone's idea of fun.

I guess that's it for now. I'll try and write some more tomorrow. There's a lot going on in my life right now - lots of things in transition at the moment. There's a lot to catch you up on, but I'll leave that for future posts. In the meantime, take care.

Maybe we'll learn something about this medium and about each other.

Good night,
Charlie =)