A New Crossroad in the Midwest

Every 18 to 24 months, Our family makes a change. It usually involves us packing up the house and moving again. Often, this is not really a rough decision. But this time it is different.

Positive indications to stay in Bloomington:

• The "traffic problem" people complain about here is non-existent compared to where we have lived previously. Honestly, I am sure most of the people who are complaining about traffic here would be one of the people who would just stop on the Washington DC beltway and leave their car right there in the middle if it snowed. Traffic here is actually a low stress environment for us.
• We have friends here and I am slowly building that same type of SharePoint community that I had when I lived in DC.
• The schools are not terrible (although they are not Fairfax County, VA or Carmel, IN).
• They have a hockey team and a few entertainment options.
• The cost of living is very nice here.

Negative indications to stay in Bloomington:

• Rental housing is very hard to come by and we don't like the deer stand we are living in now. Even if you can manage to find it, there is usually a wait list and the property is not nearly as nice as what we had in Northern Virginia... of course, the pricing is about half of what it was in Northern Virginia. When we looked at Carmel, IN, the pricing was about the same for housing as Bloomington,  but the housing itself is much nicer. The reason rental housing is such a commodity here is because there are a lot out-of-state contractors working on technology. The housing, rental, and hotel market is being stretched to the limit.
• Avery will likely be fine next year for school if we stayed here. But the academic scores for Bloomington rapidly drop when the kids enter middle school. We want her to have the best opportunity. Once she enters middle school though, we will not want to move until she graduates high school.
• I am likely pinched for employment opportunities in Bloomington if I am not working for TEKsystems.  If I want to work the Fortune 100 track though, I would need to move elsewhere.
• Boredom. This is a big issue actually. We are bored. Bloomington has a few things to do, but for the most part, it is lacking in entertainment options and culture. It is the typical midwest city. The thing we love about living in the metropolitans is there is always something to do or see. We can always take more vacations to places we want to see, but this will increase the overall expense to relieve boredom.
• Metropolitans have an existing large SharePoint communities with plenty of companies looking for my level and skill for SharePoint. It is like jumping back into the SharePoint swimming pool.
• Bloomington has a regional airport. Traveling in and out of Bloomington is not easy on the weekends due to the aforementioned weekday contractors, and is also limited in airlines and locations with direct flights. International airports however are much more likely to provide me a direct flight to the destination I choose. This also makes it harder to present and attend SharePoint Saturdays since I pay my own way for everything.

If staying in Bloomington...
Employment options using status quo:

• If I just keep doing what I am doing, I will be fine financially. I not really being challenged. The work I am doing now is the typical been-there, done-that type of work. It is steady, and monotonous.
• There is a large deployment of SharePoint 2013 in the pipeline which could be fun...but only if they have the business customers learning prior to deployment instead of what happened last time.
• I will have plenty of free time since they only allow me to work 40 hours per week.
• TEKsystems treats me very well personally, and supports the SharePoint User Group by providing a location, but they are dismissing an business opportunity I offered.

Employment options if I boost funding on DevElements:

• Relocate DevElements from Clinton to Bloomington and expand the office footprint to include a fully loaded online capable training facility, a Prometric testing center, and a SharePoint development center.
• Source SharePoint specific personnel through contracts and subcontracts across the nation.
• Develop SharePoint professionals from the graduates, and capable unemployed in central Illinois.
• Create partnerships with training vendors like what has already been created with Mindsharp.

Other Employment options:

• Pick up a 100% remote and travel global consulting position that does not require relocation.
• Find the perfect job in the perfect location and relocate. o O (This may be a pipe dream).

So far, the plan is to stay in Bloomington at least one more year. The employment part is still up in the air.