I got the same astonishment from my friends when I told them I was leaving NYC. "Why would you leave New York?" "Is there anything in Wisconsin?" One even told me if I wasn't happy in NYC, I should seek therapy, because there was clearly something wrong with me.

"When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford." --Samuel Johnson

and douglas adams's beautiful take-off on the quote:

Ursa Minor Beta is, some say, one of the most appalling places in the known Universe.

Although it is excruciatingly rich, horrifyingly sunny and more full of wonderfully exciting people than a pomegranate is of pips, it can hardly be insignificant that when a recent edition of Playbeing magazine headlined an article with the words "When you are tired of Ursa Minor Beta you are tired of life", the suicide rate quadrupled overnight.

(from "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe")

That's hilarious, its exactly the attitude in NYC.

"The truly educated man can never be bored" Arthur C. Clark, long before social media was invented.

"The true New Yorker secretly believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding." - John Updike

I'm from Wisconsin and I don't think there's much there. But perhaps that's exactly why you went?

I think it is. The trees are exactly the right height. I'm kidding :) There is a lot here, just not people, which is why I came. I wanted more trees, more rivers to canoe, more lakes to relax by. You can find that in upstate NY, too, but I already had family and friends back here, so upstate was out.

Strangely, New York and Silicon Valley are the two places that I've always eliminated when I considered moving. I, too, graduated from utexas, and then stayed in Austin for about 20 years. I never wanted to take the cut in my standard of living that either SV or NY would mean. A few years back, I did move, even further from civilization.

Back in 1994, I bought a three-bedroom townhouse for $45,000; during the dot-com boom, I realized that moving to Cali would mean living in a refrigerator box with six other people. These days, I'm paying (half of) a $1600/month mortgage on a house on 1.5 acres on the shore of the Tennessee river.

Austin is a great place to live. Great food, the best music, a very low cost of living and a thriving tech scene. Since the city is home to one of the best CS programs in the country (UT Austin) you have a plethora of fresh engineering talent for the picking.

It continually surprises me how many folks make it out to Austin for SXSW each year, and yet still go back to California. As a native Texan and Mexican food addict, I found the lack of great food options in Norcal lacking. :)

(disclaimer: I actually live in Dallas, which is a nice city, just not as nice as Austin)

Not much to say. Just really like your "grand game of chess" anology. Too many people overlook what they're giving up to get something. Especially time, or tranquility.

So how do you have a programming job in New Hampshire? This description is how I feel about Western Massachusetts.

Anywhere particular in NH? I seem to see a distinction between purely software-based startups (based in the Bay Area or NYC) and more hardware-based companies based in Mass (Boston) (MIT spinoffs, boston dynamics, iRobot) or New Hampshire (DEKA, Segway...) ... I wonder why?