From "The Digital Nomads Did Not Prepare for This
They moved to exotic locales to work through the pandemic in style. But now tax trouble, breakups and Covid guilt are setting in" (NYT).
This is a very amusingly written article by Erin Griffin.
There's a photo with the wonderful caption: "After six months in Costa Rica, Austin Mao returned to the United States, where he has fewer opportunities to chop open coconuts knocked out of trees by monkeys." That's like the first line of a novel! I love the main character's name!
There's also the story of a guy stranded in Portugal with his visa expired who attempts to apply for asylum there: "I said, ‘Trump’s a dictator, my city is burning, and people are dying.'... They made a joke that I was the first person since the Vietnam War from America to ask for that." The Portuguese officials were nice anyway. They laughed at him, but extended his visa.
Strangely, in the comments over there, people are bitching about it. Why did the NYT even publish it? They regret reading. Oh! I see what's going on: "Are we supposed to feel sorry for these people who made selfish, ill advised decisions?" Unlike the Portuguese officials, they don't know how to laugh.
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The responses are part of the funny! NYT can publish “oh noes! women experiencing obstacles to living their dreams!” even when their problems are their own stupid fault articles* every day and the response is always sadz and outrage, but the commenters forgot to turn on the sadz and outrage machine for this one. Usually NYT commenters aren’t so hot with the idea of being responsible for your choices and their consequences.
*you know the ones. “woman spent prime childbearing years dating married men and working on career single and childless at 40 and it’s society’s fault” — that kind of article.
Jackson Hole is in the middle of an extraordinary buyer's market for housing. Properties being purchased sight unseen by Californians. Prices insane. I wonder if they know how cold and snowy it is there?
This won't be funny at all, but I'm put in mind of Into the Wild, wherein Young Disillusioned American Seeking a Purer Life goes off to Alaska with a 50-lb bag of rice and proceeds to starve to death in an abandoned bus. The book presents him as a hermit in the old sense - choosing solitude in order to have a spiritual awakening - but although I read it with an open mind, all I came away with was the stupid, sterile narcissism of galloping off into an environment - a very harsh environment - for which you're tragically but willfully unprepared, believing that you are sufficient, alone.
Are we supposed to feel sorry for these people who made selfish, ill advised decisions?
The liberal god is an angry god with no room for forgiveness, understanding, or empathy.
"Ore., a nearby man with a weed whacker began roaring his motor. Ms. Adair-Smith told him that she was trying to salvage her career. He didn’t care."
Everybody loves that asswipe who uses Starbucks to make business calls.
What Tim said.
What’s actually sad is the kids using McDonalds and Taco Bell wifi for school.
sorry, “school”
If they thought that Trump was going to win the commenters would be praising these fools as heroes.
What island did Antifa fly off to?
So wealthy americans sought to arbitrage their pandemic situations by traveling to lower cost/exotic locales and leech off their resources and were surprised by the results?
I'm pretty sure I know who the protagonists aren't in this story.
"...why not make a new home in an exotic place?..."
Portland, Oregon?
I picked Ohio to work from home, since 1986. Mostly to NJ and CA.
What’s round on the ends, hi in the middle?
oHio
One data point. Work for a Fortune 500 company with about 10000 employees. Corporate sites are “closed” until at least July 2021. We have a local “shared” office facility for folks in the field. About 8 offices in a Regus facility. We were told to plan to exit at end of year as our company would not be renewing lease and work from home started in March. Received notification this week that the Regus facility was closing and we needed to be out by end of week and pick up personal effects Work from home has shifted my 2% income tax away from blue city into purple suburbs.
Had a discussion with family and are likely putting the house on the market soon. Market seems to be up and homes selling fast and above asking. Planned to downsize in about 3-5 years anyhow so a bit ahead of schedule. Will likely rent for a year or 2 as we have one in college and a hs senior. Need to consider state residency (for now) for college choices/costs. Don’t need to wait 3 years to see what Biden does to the economy. Would not have thought these would be considerations a year ago. Also Ohio.
What is so selfish about what they did? Obviously they did it for themselves but is that se!fish?
Leaving the city for rural places with modern inconveniences? They went deplorable. You never go full deplorable.
We moved half way across the country to Austin last year and this past January bought a house. I wish I would have known the Covid was coming because we would have purchased a larger home. We didn't need a home office in January. Now we need two. It's a lovely home but in less than 2 months became outdated for our needs.
Escape to Jackson Hole? Good one. Two counties in Wyoming are dominated by Dems: Teton (Jackson & surrounding enclaves) and Albany (home of the University of Wyoming). If you need to work in Jackson, you can add the commute over Teton pass to Idaho. Gridlock at 'rush hour'.
Oh, what fun!
Have heard of college students renting apartments and living together in southern locations since all classes are remote. Why not have nicer weather and a pool if you can. Our college junior came home early and will finish out semester doing classes from home. We originally thought things would loosen up over the semester but it turned into what was essentially solitary confinement in the dorms. It was not a healthy environment at all.
they don't know how to laugh.
To them, a hit of moral superiority feels better than laughter.
There aren't any Redwoods in Eugene, unless they have been planted in somebody's yard.
Perfection. So damned illusive 😆 Especially when you make rash decisions without really thinking. And when you don't understand reality.
Or as Roseanne Roseannadann says. "It's always something."
The anxious self-optimization pingpongs between 'Why aren’t I living my best life?' and 'Why aren’t I killing it at work?
As always...listen to Roseanne Roseannadanna.
Green Acres is the place to be!
At least they had the balls to take a risk.
Thank goodness it was easier for most of these folks to vote.
"Jackson Hole is in the middle of an extraordinary buyer's market for housing. Properties being purchased sight unseen by Californians. Prices insane. I wonder if they know how cold and snowy it is there?"
That sounds like a *seller's* market.
But I know what you mean. When I first looked around for places to move in retirement, I considered Jackson Hole. But I looked at the temperatures. And I'm not coming from California. I'm in Wisconsin and I love the winter and want seasonal change. But Jackson Hole is way cold from my point of view.
We originally thought things would loosen up over the semester but it turned into what was essentially solitary confinement in the dorms. It was not a healthy environment at all.
Mine too. University absolutely pulled a bait & switch on that one. She's on the hook for the apartment lease anyway so decided to stay at school, but if she were in the dorms she would absolutely come home and just eat it. In an off campus apartment she at least has a little freedom of movement and there's no campus Stasi reporting people for the crime of spending time with their friends.
I have an acquaintance who is doing the whole work from the RV while traveling the country thing with her husband and their college student decided to come along too. Why not, right?
Houses in my neighborhood are selling the day they come on the market in my third rate south Texas city - I don't know if it's because they're larger and most have offices, that plus people are fleeing high tax covid police states, or all houses are selling fast because of low rates?
After decades of stagnation, home prices in Osceola, Wisconsin (an hour from the Twin Cities) are up 25% since July.
I went a different route. I made my home a great place to be. Then again, I was transitioning to a teleworking solution since I first recognized its benefit over a decade ago. I get paid a lot to go into the office, but I'm more productive at home. Hurricane Harvey forced many businesses in Houston to realize this fact. Covid has forced many others.
On a related note to this and Dr. Naomi Wolff from yesterday. I understand Biden is still interested in a nationwide mask mandate. I'm wondering how many liberal performers will be happy with their Biden vote? Live entertainment has cratered during the pandemic. Home theaters have been a niche market, but they have never lived up to live performances. But who wants to go to a live event, wear a mask for a few hours, and if they believe it is all necessary, take the risk of getting sick? If they don't believe it is all necessary, why join in on the pretense? Biden will destroy this industry, and I suspect it heavily supported him. Good luck working from home as an entertainer, or as Rahm Emanuel suggests; learn to code.
@ Pants: Houses in my neighborhood are selling the day they come on the market in my third rate south Texas city
Even in California, in our desirable rural area, this is the case. The new buyers are fleeing the urban areas, but can't cut the California umbilical cord. In fact, there are no more listings available so realtors from other areas have taken to cold calling and asking people if they are interested in selling their houses.
Then the people from other places in California move in and start bitching about everything. One guy wants everyone to chip in to pave the dirt and gravel road that HIS house is on, along with many other homes which have been there for decades, because HIS car gets dusty. (grrrrr. Wait until it snows and he finds out the road is not plowed by the Government ...evil grin)
He also announced that they are going to B&B their new home and to expect a lot of people coming and going. All the while complaining about their (deplorable) neighbors...to the most deplorable of all us deplorables...lol.
They bitch. moan and want to change everything about the area to be just like where they came from in California. (bringing the infestation right with them) Can't understand why the rubes are so unfriendly. /facepalm
Two of our Realtor friends have refused to do any business with Californians from "certain areas" with "certain dispositions". Period.
On the other hand...if we DID want to move, we could get a premium price for our place.
Here's an official list of shithole countries to avoid, although Iceland shouldn't be on it.
After traveling two to three nights per week for 30 years, My adjustment has been uh difficult. Of course, I have always had a home office. That wasn't the issue. Whenever I've been home for two weeks in a row, my wife asks "What's your schedule next week?" Hers is probably the bigger adjustment.
They said work from home. They didn't say who's home. My sister lives in the inland waterway in NC & I worked from there a week. Another week I worked from my college roommate's home in Surf City, NC one block from the ocean. I just rotate as long as they let me. Come home for a couple of weeks then repeat. LOL
The downside is that I'm starting six full days of Microsoft Teams meetings this week. Yikes
People are running from Dem enclaves.
I have a friend who just bought a house here in Vegas. It increased $20K during the 30 day escrow. It's just a flood of people from CA selling their overprices ghetto homes and coming here with money to burn. My home has increased by $400K since I bought it 3 years ago. They are building new homes at an incredible pace here and have been for over a decade.
During one curbside conference call in Eugene, Ore., a nearby man with a weed whacker began roaring his motor. Ms. Adair-Smith told him that she was trying to salvage her career. He didn’t care.
Ah, White people/First World problems.
The guy probably didn't speak English, but not caring was also a good option for him.
And how is Eugene Oregon exotic?
Blogger Howard said...At least they had the balls to take a risk.
That's true. No denigration from me for taking risks. Risk taking is how America was founded. Without risk takers, and dreamers dreaming the impossible dream, no human progress would be made. BTW: many of those risks and dreams do turn out not so well.
However, complaining and whining about things not being "exactly" what your dream envisioned...that I can denigrate.
Suck it up Buttercups.
“Leaving the city for rural places with modern inconveniences? They went deplorable. You never go full deplorable”
For me, it’s kinda nice. The phone company pulled fiber through the neighborhood last summer, and plan to hook it up this coming summer. That means smokin hot Internet - comparable to what we have here in a brand new area of NE PHX/Scottsdale.
Here in PHX, we have Whole Foods a half mile from here. Back in MT, if you want organic, you can get the real stuff, at the Mennonite store a couple miles west of here. Grass fed beef (elk, and bison) is easy to get, and we typically know the provenance of the beef we eat. The grocery store is decent, but not great. Prices marginally higher than suburban stores, but less selection. Oysters are hit or miss, with little selection, when they are in. But our proximity to ID and WA means much better potatoes, onions, and apples than you find in big city suburban stores. We picked up what we needed for potato soup Saturday at Whole Foods, and the potatoes and onions there (that we were forced to use) were horrid - so bad that they would probably be sent to the local food bank in MT. The red potatoes were hard, and the sweet onions weren’t. Somehow Whole Foods doesn’t know the difference between sweet and yellow onions. We are spoiled in MT, with the yearly competition between Walla Walla and Hermiston sweet onions. So, there are redeeming factors.
But the big change for rural life is Amazon Prime. Here in PHX, I spend a lot of time driving hither and yon, shopping around NW PHX and N Scottsdale. Better than a tank of gas a week for the Tahoe. In MT, we got everything delivered (mostly for free with Prime) either to our porch, or at the post office a mile away. With much better selection. It’s nice to be able to look at what you buy beforehand, but I am moving towards the Amazon model even here in PHX.
It’s not all roses, of course. There are adverse issues. Limited dating opportunities. No AP classes in the HS (but no discipline problems either). One thing to look at though is where the state makes its money. MT has no sales tax, moderate property taxes, but relatively high income taxes. WA used to be nice with its zero income taxes, but has gone gestapo with its gun laws (MT just passed state preemption, keeping Missoula from restricting open and concealed carry). TX sounds nice, with no income taxes, and moderately good gun laws, except for the weather, the insects, and that it is filled with Texans. Liked my five years there in Austin, but was ready to leave. WY is good on taxes and guns, but horrid on scenery, except in very rare places like Jackson Hole, that are going bonkers right now.
Does anybody really have slow internet anymore? I have not seen slow internet since the days of America On-line. My house has five adults running TVs and phones on one basic bottom tier internet service, and it's always seamless.
"Are we supposed to feel sorry for these people who made selfish, ill advised decisions?"
Why not? We are if they're poor or homeless.
We moved to an "exotic locale" in April of this year, fleeing our longtime home in suburban Cook County on Chicago's southwest side. Our new exotic locale is called "Chesterton" and it's in Northwest Indiana. It's small-town semi-rural Midwest. There's a vast cornfield one block from our front door. A huge watershed conservation preserve one block in the other direction. Lake Michigan and the Indiana Dunes state and national parks are a five minute drive to the east. The town has drive-in hamburger stands where the waitresses come out to your car and attach trays to your windows; root beer floats are house specialties. We even have a drive-in movie theater, great for pandemics! It's peaceful, inexpensive, no crime, people wave and smile at you everywhere you go.
I'm now officially a Hoosier, with a firearms carry card in an open-carry Red state that gave all its electoral votes to Trump.
I think we did the right thing, moving here. Even it is exotic.
"Does anybody really have slow internet anymore?"
Yes... well, I used to. I signed up for 100mbps cable two months ago. I had Centurylink- speed? 6mbps (at best, usually less) and no prospects for improvement on the horizon.
"After the haters, Mr. Mao said, came the guilt."
Mr. Mao is a perfect novel protagonist name and his story sounds novelish. I'm sure there will be Covid novels and movies etc. A medical professional I recently saw said she went to a pizza place the other Friday night and there was a sign saying, "Please remove your mask before entering." It seems they were afraid of robbery. I've thought about writing something using the mask and a crime but that seems too obvious. Unless maybe you use a unique mask that a prominent enough person has been seen wearing, a custom designed mask, and you dress like him with his mask then do a crime to frame him. Maybe even steal one of his masks and leave it with his dna all over it near the scene of the crime. That's still pretty routine but it could develop into something fun.
DBQ
And thus it was that Georgia went (maybe) for Biden. Loathsome yankee ideas came down with them like burrs stuck to socks. And because they are scared shitless of black people they reside in the northern suburbs of Atlanta far far from our black brothers.
“I have a friend who just bought a house here in Vegas. It increased $20K during the 30 day escrow. It's just a flood of people from CA selling their overprices ghetto homes and coming here with money to burn. My home has increased by $400K since I bought it 3 years ago. They are building new homes at an incredible pace here and have been for over a decade”
It’s not for everyone. My partner grew up there (mostly Henderson), and still has her mother and sister there, as well as her best friend. We drive through there on our way to and from MT/PHX every year, and try to do Valentine’s Day there too. She claims that Vegas got behind on building freeways decades ago, and never caught up. We were through in October, and it was 4 or so lanes of bumper to bumper traffic all the way through town, in the middle of the day.
One thing that she really hates there are the drivers. Her best girlfriend from HS seems to have one hand permanently attached to the horn. Sure, you might find that in LA too, but a lot more people in Vegas are probably armed. Always been bad, apparently, but has gotten worse, with the influx of people from CA. One big problem I have noticed every time I visit, is that how many of the people are angry. Not in the law firm I was in, of course - I was in the IP practice group, which has a lot of ties to Entertainment (and for me Gaming). That was sweet, with a huge conference room looking out over the Strip, etc. But everyone else, it seems.
The place I would suggest, if you want to live in NV, but don’t want the hustle bustle, and anger, of Vegas, is the Minden/Gardnerville area 20 miles S of Carson City. Moderate climate (which Vegas does not have - it is hot as heck in the summer, with a lot of scorching hot wind), gorgeous views, 20 minutes from skiing and Lake Tahoe, without the mountains of snow. If I had my choice, I would sell our houses in MT and AZ, and move there. We won’t because my partner has 35 years summering in that part of MT, and 40 of living near this part of PHX.
Back to Vegas - a lot of retired people love living there. The casinos, in particular, have a lot of deals for them. Her parents, when her father was still alive, would go do a buffet or two a week, playing a little (mostly penny) slots, and eating really cheaply. It’s win/win, because they really don’t eat that much, and giving them discounts through their players’ clubs brings them into the casinos.
One caution though - some of the hospitals are good, while some are really bad. Do your research. We loved a couple in Henderson. A couple of them actually in Vegas are bad. Her first husband was born, and then died, in UMC - from medical malpractice. And she flatlined in another for the same reason. She was in UMC, when nursing staff were routinely stealing pain meds from patients (she helped expose it). Girl down the hall, who had just had her leg amputated, kept everyone up screaming for pain meds. The nurses, who were stealing them didn’t care. That is also the hospital that has traditionally dispensed the Methadone to the junkies on the Strip. That means encountering long lines of less desirable people, if you aren’t careful. Ditto for doctors. The top tier are some of the best in the country. Her back surgeon is in that group. But more hacks than most places too.
A home office is deductible for federal tax purposes, in proportion to the size of the office versus the size of the house, to include all proportionate expenses of operating the office (utilities, communications). My home office is in the biggest room in the house, of course.
Check with your CPA before believing me, of course.
A home office is deductible but an office rented in an office building, perhaps, for example, because you have six children in various states of learning from home, is not. *disapproval emoji*
DBQ: I like it. That's exactly how I feel about Trump. I admire his stones to take risk but his constant whining is tiresome. My new favorite catch phrase for Trumpers complaining about the election: suck it up, buttercup.
"My new favorite catch phrase for Trumpers complaining about the election: suck it up, buttercup."
That's nice. Another good one is "what goes around comes around".
Just sayin'.
portugal where they have locked down the country more, they never learn do they,
I live in a fairly new development in Texas that has one entrance in and out that is a bridge over a railroad track. Home lots are a quarter acre. And we have a transplant from California. At any HOA meeting, you can expect the transplant to complain about three things:
1) We need a sidewalk up the hill to the bridge, so joggers can use it and be safer than jogging in the street. (note, the bridge itself has a sidewalk area, but nothing on the hill)
2) We need ADA compliant ramps for sidewalks at intersections.
3) We need more green space.
The master development plan has been available for all home buyers. All the public infrastructure that is planned is built out, and no plans were ever intended beyond what was advertised in the master development plan. All new home buyers had to walk buy the master development plan to even talk to a sales agent. Yet this California transplant thinks he is elite and tell us what we should be doing for him to live in our neighborhood.
We always wonder the level of intelligence needed to purchase a home in an area you don't care to live. Options were and still available, and at a much cheaper cost.
"Boggle" would have been quite a neologism for Seneca, so some translator must have put it in his mouth. I wonder what the original Latin phrase was?
Shaden, I'd like you to meet Freude.
People wonder why so many of us enjoy hearing about when overly optimistic people fail. I wonder at those wondering.
*Schaden...
Snark typos suck :)
Most of these things; taxes, wifi, borders, are fully known.
The most important thing is access to quality health care.
No matter your age, a serious illness or mishap in a third world country (where you could live like a king if you stay alive) could prove fatal very quickly.
It's all up to you as to how you experience these things that you try. Of course, establishing realistic expectations ahead of the change/move is important. All this whining and complaining that it didn't turn out ideally or in the form of their "best life" is so childish. Perhaps they should attend a seminar on "Adulting".
In the meantime I will just chuckle at their folly and complaining.
No matter your age, a serious illness or mishap in a third world country (where you could live like a king if you stay alive) could prove fatal very quickly.
A patient of mine, a retired liquor wholesaler, had retired to Crete. They loved it even though neither spoke Greek. When he passed age 75, he decided to return to USA. H and his wife lived in Leisure World and he decided he should have a colonoscopy. No symptoms but he had never had one. It found the smallest colon cancer I have ever seen. Little bigger than a pea.
I was standing at his bedside visiting with him and his wife when my wife called me to tell me the Challenger had exploded.
There have been plenty of accounts in the British press of people stranded in foreign parts by the quarantines and shutdowns, and of those who managed to get out just in the nick of time.
Buy your new citizenship.
St. Kitts. No income tax.
done.
see ya America.
Let he who has never made a selfish, ill-advised decision cast the first stone.
Exotic places and Eugene in the same article, ha. I cannot, off the top of my head, think of anywhere downtown Ms Smith-Adair might have been at curbside where someone using a weed whacker during business hours wouldn't have been a city employee, which may or may not add a fillip of additional amusement to the story.
That sounds like a *seller's* market
Ty for correction ...
Marc at 2:03 My thoughts exactly. I have family in Eugene and have been there many times. You nailed it. Also, Eugene as exotic? Huh?
One caution though - some of the hospitals are good, while some are really bad.
I had almost a pipeline of patients from Vegas when I was in practice in Orange County CA. It was word of mouth, which might be important there.
Speaking of which, my wife is now dealing with a botched laparoscopic gallbladder surgery. As it happens, I did a thousand of them when in practice and never had a complication. The surgeon is a young woman, very pretty and happy. Tucson might be a bit like Vegas medically speaking.
Now that I have read the article, we really have to make a thing out of the Eugene weed-whacker guy that didn't care about that woman's phone call. I'm thinking of a simple profile of a guy with a weed-whacker with text in a circle around it "I Do Not Care About Your Career I Have a Job To Do".
Thoughts? Revisions? Too complicated? Discuss.
Blogger bagoh20 said...
"Does anybody really have slow internet anymore? I have not seen slow internet since the days of America On-line. My house has five adults running TVs and phones on one basic bottom tier internet service, and it's always seamless."
You do if you live in rural, northern Vermont. Verizon pulled out of the residential phone service business in some of the counties, leaving folks with unreliable and spotty internet/phone service from providers you've never heard of. Thus, my folks are still using DSL because there is infrastructure for broadband or fiber. They cannot stream online smoothly so are left with satellite TV. They would have better luck and through-put to use their phones as hotspots for their tablets but trying to explain all of that and give tech support from 3500 miles away is a futile gesture.
Dust Bunny Queen, you are very right that most suburb and city dwellers have no clue about the land zoning and rules for rural and/or unincorporated locations. I had a relative buy a property at a county unincorporated section right next to a suburb development. The main roads hadn't been paved & I warned them that it wouldn't be done by the county. First rainy season in they bitched about the muddy roads but shut up once I reminded them that they bought the property knowing the rules.
You do if you live in rural, northern Vermont. Verizon pulled out of the residential phone service business in some of the counties, leaving folks with unreliable and spotty internet/phone service from providers you've never heard of.
Starlink is coming to save the day.
Well done, Bruce. Way to ruin Gardnerville and Minden before I have a chance to move there.
My twin sister Jen has a sister that moved to Florida some years back.
When they told her that she'd have to work from home, she said;
"Cool! my home is in Northeast Iowa! and they've let her move back.
So she's making Fort Lauderdale wages, and is living with iowa costs
gahrie @ 5:06 "Starlink is coming to save the day."
My thoughts as well. By the time SpaceX end Elon Musk are done tossing up sattelites there will be global coverage.
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