
Making Seattle my home - jseliger
http://matt-welsh.blogspot.com/2011/07/making-seattle-my-home.html
======
potatolicious
I just moved away from Seattle after spending two years there - it's a place
I'd probably go back to once I'm older, but IMO it's not the best place to
spend your 20s.

The neighborhoods are nice, there's a lot of nature - you're close to
mountains, parks, and water practically always. The weather is relatively mild
(if a little dreary for most of the year), and the politics relatively
progressive (well, sort of, all of Washington state _except_ Seattle is pretty
much very pro-Republican).

The social scene though, leaves a lot to be desired. Google "Seattle Freeze"
for a much more in-depth look at the problem than I can write up. Locals deny
it exists, anyone transplanted from another city swears by it. I find myself
in the Bay Area now and find people far more approachable, and far more
willing to make a new friend, whereas in Seattle one finds a lot more polite-
yet-distant interactions, none of which ever seem to go anywhere. Making that
worse is the fact that the social scene in Seattle is very much locals vs.
transplants - which is to say neither side interact with each other very much.
For people on the transplant side (where transplants are mostly tech people)
it means your circles get pretty homogenous. Nearly all of my friends from my
time in Seattle worked in software (either Amazon, Microsoft, or a smattering
of other local companies).

Right now I'm still in that place in life where I enjoy making new friends and
meeting varied and interesting people, and Seattle was _really_ not doing it
for me. I've had a much easier go at it since moving to California, and I
can't say I really miss Seattle.

~~~
Raphael
Wow, I thought I was just bad at making friends. But I almost never seem to
meet anyone around Seattle.

~~~
potatolicious
That's kind of one of the more insidious things about living in Seattle, isn't
it? You start out bitching about how hard it is to make friends.

And then, after a while, this doubt sneaks into your mind: is it me? Do I suck
at this socialization thing a lot more than I realized? Oh God it's me isn't
it.

I thought the same, then I moved to SF and the number of people I befriended
in the first few weeks is staggering compared to the number of people I
managed to meet in the two years I was in Seattle. So...

~~~
khafra
It could be worse. I grew up in Seattle, and never made any friends until
years after I'd moved away and finally realized it was possible.

------
ycalumn
Matt, not sure you read HN, but I know friends of yours and you know friends
of mine. Anyways; we walked in the same circles, and both decided to leave CS
academia.

I wish you would honestly answer this; did you leave cause academia was
bullshit? That's why I left. I regularly talk to grad students all torn up
about leaving academia, and I keep telling them that "industry" is just as
worthwhile an endeavor as research. I feel like reading about your path you've
come to the same conclusion.

~~~
socratic
You seem like a very interesting character, _ycalumn_ throwaway account.

Having read Matt's account of his actions, I agree with your reading. It feels
like he came to believe academia was bullshit, but didn't want to hurt his
close friends in academia. (Which is fine! You are using a throwaway account,
no?)

Over time, I came to view CS academia as bullshit as well, but I am starting
to reverse this view. Academia is inefficient, anachronistic, political,
bureaucratic, and doesn't do a very good job measuring its own output.
However, that seems to apply to countless other institutions, especially
institutions with billions of dollars.

Is it possible that academia is a flawed system that sometimes has good
results (e.g., new knowledge, startups, quality engineers) that would not have
happened otherwise? Or have new inventions like incubators or online education
arrived that make it easier to achieve those good results without the old,
flawed system?

------
jordow
I was originally from Seattle where I was an engineer at Amazon for a couple
years before moving to the bay area. Seattle is an incredibly livable place.
If you feel yourself getting bothered by the rain, just remind yourself that
the rain cleans out the air and produces the greenest, freshest natural beauty
that you can find on the West coast. Hands down - better summer climate than
anywhere. If you're doing a startup, do you really leave your computer
anyways? Just save it for when the weather's nice. I don't know why Seattle
doesn't have as large of a startup scene. It's got a huge tech scene, no
doubt, and it has every ingredient in the mix to foster a large startup
community (smarts, companies, UW, coffee, good beer). Most of all, it seems
more business friendly. In particular - the economic climate seems more
startup friendly. You could get a really decent place to rent for 800 dollars
a month. The transportation has gotten much better with the underground
train/bus tunnel. About seven days a week there's almost always a killer happy
hour where you could eat gourmet food for under ten dollars - much better than
the food I've had in the Bay Area. Also, there's no state income tax. If
you're looking to buy a house, I believe that all things considered, your
house purchase dollars go five times further in the Seattle area. - And you're
just an hour and a half flight away from the South Bay. It seems you could
live there and be very frugal, and spend your credit card miles commuting to
the bay area once every other week - and still come out ahead. I haven't been
back there in a year, but I hear the startup community is getting even
stronger. I hope it does well as a startup hub.

------
steve8918
A few years ago, I got a job offer from Amazon. I live in Silicon Valley, and
I almost took it, but then I was playing rollerhockey outside at around 7pm,
clear blue sky with the sun setting, it was still 75 F. At that instant, I had
a "California moment", and I thought to myself "Do I really want to exchange
300 of sunshine for 200 days of rain?" So I didn't take the job.

Now, I would very much like to move to Seattle. I actually grew up near the
Pacific Northwest, so I'm used to the rain, but my wife wouldn't be able to
handle it, so it's basically a non-starter.

But now that I'm older, I would very much like to live the lifestyle that
Seattle has to offer. It's a genuinely beautiful city, and I would very much
like to live there at some point in my life.

~~~
guga31bb
>I actually grew up near the Pacific Northwest, so I'm used to the rain, but
my wife wouldn't be able to handle it, so it's basically a non-starter.

My situation exactly. Every time we go back up to WA/OR to visit, everything
looks so beautiful and green. On the other hand, after living in California
for the past 10 years, I find myself wondering if I'd be able to tolerate the
lack of sunshine, even after growing up in Seattle.

------
jasontan
I spent fourteen years in Seattle until I moved to SF this June. I sorely miss
the natural beauty. The air is cleaner, the nature is encompassing, and people
are smart and down-to-earth. The rain is manageable -- just don't use an
umbrella, otherwise people will know you're new to the city :-)

------
chrismealy
_SUNDAY, JULY 31, 2011 I moved to Seattle about 4 months ago_

It's cloudy from November through June. Let's see how he feels in six months.

If you move to Seattle and complain about the weather, please, shut the fuck
up and go back to California. We have enough of you whiners up here already.

~~~
timr
_"It's cloudy from November through June. Let's see how he feels in six
months."_

Only if you count July, September and October as sunny. By any conventional
standard, "summer" in Seattle lasts from August until early September. I lived
in Seattle for seven years, and every single year I was wearing a sweater to
the fireworks on July 4.

You get used to it, but that's nothing to brag about.

------
laluser
I am also moving to Seattle in a few months after I finish school. Having
spent my summer there, I can't say I have any complaints, winters however, are
a different story I hear. Coming from the Midwest though, I think I would
prefer the rain over 3 months of harsh winters.

On a side note, I am curious in finding out why do so many high-achieving
computer science folks in academia make the jump to work at Google? It takes a
lot of effort to reach the point where some of these people are at, so there
must be great incentives to make that move. What are those?

~~~
caryme
I'm moving from the midwest to Seattle soon after graduating too! I'll be
moving out in late August to work at Microsoft after I graduate from
Northwestern University this spring. I agree about the weather -
mild/gray/rainy may be an improvement over wintery death.

~~~
bgramer
I moved to Seattle from Chicago to work at Amazon. When people ask me how I
put up with the rain in Seattle, I just reply back "how do you put up with the
snow?"

Seattle has a great diverse ecosystem for outdoors enthusiasts - drive for an
hour or so, and you can go skiing, hiking, swimming, camping and more.

Seattle has a great craft beer culture as well. Some of my favorite bars are:
Brouwers, Uber, Naked City, Beveridge Place Pub and Collins Pub.

If you want authentic mexican, check out Oaxaca in Ballard. As for taco truck
food, check out El Camion in the parking lot of Home Depot on 135th and I-99
Aurora as well as Taqueria Tequila on 85th.

For Chicago style stuffed pizza, check out Delfino's in University Village and
stay far away from Kylie's in Fremont (ugh)...for normal pizza, try Serious
Pie, Flying Squirrel and Via Tribunali.

For breakfast, try Beth's Cafe and CJ's (my favorite eggs benedict)

For italian, try Cafe Lago. Great pasta.

For sandwiches - my 2 favorite places are Salumi's where you should try the
Mole & Mozz. Salumi's is a few blocks away from where the Seahawks play.
Second place is Tat's where they have the town's best philly cheese steak
sandwich.

For ice cream, Molly Moon's wins hands down. They are in Wallingford as well
as Capitol Hill.

Enjoy!

~~~
CamperBob
_For italian, try Cafe Lago. Great pasta._

The first rule of Cafe Lago is you don't talk about Cafe Lago. They run out of
lasagna at 7 PM as it is. :(

------
larsberg
He mentions missing Chinese food, but there's a reason there isn't much of the
Good Stuff -- it's all up in Richmond, BC. It's just a couple hour drive north
over the border, and is a small town just south of Vancouver with a population
that I can't confirm, but appears to be roughly 50% Cantonese. Some of the
great food there:

\- Food courts in the malls. Seriously, Parker Place if you like it "almost a
bit too real" and Yaohan Centre if you and the family want to get a mish-mash
of dishes.

\- Dim Sum Restaurants. They're a little further south on No. 3 Road, closer
to the Nordstrom's, but they're big, clean, fresh, and always packed.

\- Hot Pot. Seriously, having tried in NY, Chicago, SF, etc. I've never had
reasonable Cantonese-style hot pot until there.

\- Buddhist Vegetarian. The hours require some planning, but the Internation
Buddhist Temple has stunningly amazing vegetarian food. And it's a great site,
even for non-Buddhists.

\- Tofu dessert! Yes, at least as of a couple of years ago, there's even a
late-night tofu dessert shop (better than it sounds, trust me) in the strip
mall area buried about a block south of the Yahoan Centre.

My wife's originally from HK and I lived in Seattle for 6 years, so this food
knowledge was crucial to a happy marriage...

------
iqster
It is interesting to note that if the Bay area had a high speed rail system,
it would alleviate both of Matt's issues (quality affordable housing and
reasonable commute times).

~~~
natrius
High speed rail isn't necessary for that. Cities just need to relax their
zoning restrictions to allow more housing to be built where people want to
live. Low supply + high demand = high prices.

~~~
jseliger
This is a perspicacious comment; if you're curious about more, see Edward
Glaeser's book _The Triumph of the City_ ([http://www.amazon.com/Triumph-City-
Greatest-Invention-Health...](http://www.amazon.com/Triumph-City-Greatest-
Invention-
Healthier/dp/159420277X?ie=UTF8&tag=thstsst-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957)),
which is quite good on 1) how density promotes idea transmission, 2) the
environmental consequences of cities, and 3) transportation problems, which
affect (2).

~~~
natrius
Read it; loved it. I highly recommend it as well.

------
staunch
Sounds good to me, except the damn weather. My office is in Santa Monica and
the weather is 70s, sunny, and never too humid. We keep the door and windows
open and a cool ocean breeze blows in all day.

Silicon Valley has similar weather, so that would be easy, but I don't know if
I could handle gloomy weather a big portion of the year.

Google's Santa Monica office is 6 blocks from the beach, same as ours.

~~~
ericabiz
> "My office is in Santa Monica and the weather is 70s, sunny, and never too
> humid. We keep the door and windows open and a cool ocean breeze blows in
> all day. Silicon Valley has similar weather, so that would be easy"

Hate to burst your bubble, but as someone who lived in the Valley for 10
years, then San Diego, no, the weather in the Valley is not nearly as nice as
SoCal!

San Francisco gets the ocean breeze, though it's more like a freezing cold
foggy rain. (We used to have this ongoing joke in SF: "How do you know that
person is a tourist? Because he's wearing shorts!") I lived in Pacifica, which
was beautiful, and right on the coast, but it was never warm and breezy like
SoCal.

The rest of the Valley is a 1-hour+ drive from the coast, and it gets that
"inland hot" weather. Not like the IE, but like a mini-IE. You don't want to
live in San Jose without air conditioning.

I don't really miss the weather in the Valley!

------
llambda
> Mixed in have been some cooler rainy days that feel out of place for the
> season.

Better get used to it. Seattle has many cool, overcast days (although,
surprisingly less precipitation than Chicago or NYC) and is definitely known
for its dreary weather. If you had a few sunny days in the Summer it was a
damned good Summer.

As a former Seattleite (I was born there and lived there for many years) I
understand where you're coming from, apropos the weather: but in all
seriousness, learn to love it (or at least how to deal with it) because it's
definitely a primary feature of life there. The good news is most of the time
the weather is fairly mild, including the Winters. There generally isn't a lot
of snow. But it will get cool (even cold) and you will have to deal with the
weather never actually being insanely nice for most of the year.

------
akg_67
We most probably live within few blocks of each other in Seattle.

Let's hope you will still like in couple of years the mostly cloudy, rainy,
dreary, no sun weather of Seattle. It is depressing weather 10 months a year,
IMO.

Wallingford area has some nice eateries on 45th from Dick's to Tilth. We
typically just walk down street for dinner weather permitting. Some of our
favorites on 45th are Joule's, Tilth, Issian, Kabul, Chutney, Sutra. You most
probably also not far from Tutta Bella on Stone Way or student style eateries
on University Ave. Pam's Kitchen and Chilli's are our favorite on Univ Ave.

~~~
shalmanese
Dick's and nice eateries do not belong in the same sentence.

------
mobileman
We should hang out

~~~
ryanmolden
For all new to or planning on coming to Seattle there is a Hacker News meetup
that recent started
([http://www.meetup.com/HackerNewsSeattleMeetup/events/2752013...](http://www.meetup.com/HackerNewsSeattleMeetup/events/27520131/)),
I haven't been as I live up north and driving into Seattle is something I try
to do as little as possible for my own sanity. There is also a local startup
group (Seattle Tech Startups: <http://seattletechstartups.com/doku.php>) who
have occasional talks at the UW campus as well as a fairly active social
calendar (<http://www.seattletechcalendar.com/>). Then of course there is the
UW which has public lectures, Bill Gates is giving a talk next week I believe
(just saw an e-mail invite for it today, but alas I am gone on vacation next
week).

~~~
zacharycohn
Yep! I run the events, and I was looking for a good place to plug them on this
thread... :) They're wildly successful (120 RSVPs in ~24 hours for this latest
event...), and there's free beer and free pizza.

I'll be posting it to HN early next week, but if you RSVP now you'll have a
much better chance (I'm capping it at 200 RSVPs).

~~~
Abundnce10
Keep up the good work Zach! I appreciate the time and energy you put into
making these Meetups come together. I'll see you in November...

~~~
zacharycohn
Make sure to say hi and introduce yourself. :)

------
LoveLinux
As a positive, he lists "one of the best elementary schools in Seattle (John
Stanford) just a few blocks away."

As 1 of 2 negatives, he lists "everyone in Seattle appears to be white".

Consider the economic conditions of American cities in which Whites are a
minority. Virtually all are economically depressed. Think Detroit, Newark,
East St. Louis, East LA, Miami’s Little Haiti, South Dallas, etc.

Unfortunately, most white people would do anything to avoid being called a
racist. This includes doing things that go against their group interests at
all costs. Most white people are proud of themselves for "not noticing" race
unless it's to point out whites behaving badly. I get so exasperated with the
whole situation that I don’t know what to do.

~~~
kjackson
I'm not sure what your point is. Is it to say that it takes minorities to
create poverty?

Are you saying there aren't poor white communities in the US? What about
around the world, like Eastern Europe, or even Greece?

