Results 151 to 175 of 331
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07-10-2019, 12:52 PM #151
Ha
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07-10-2019, 01:29 PM #152
Yup. I glossed over the details a bit, partly because OP might have a different set of expectations or feel he's missing some specific thing, but that pretty well describes the way it goes down if you're doing it right, I think. Seems to be true whether you're helping someone move or performing a professional service.
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07-10-2019, 01:50 PM #153Registered User
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07-10-2019, 01:57 PM #154
Adironrider hit the nail on the head. +1000 to everything he said.
I'll chime in from the sellout side of things- I initially graduated from college and planned on doing some kind of alternative to mainstream career life. I wanted to fight fire, guide backpacking trips (NOLS, etc) or figure out some other way make shit work in the mountains.
It quickly became apparent that doing so wasn't a going to provide even a halfway decent standard of living. I got sick and couldn't see doctors because of lack of money and no health insurance, I had no means of saving money and I had no leverage to negotiate what I was worth with employers. I also saw friends struggle to get out of the ski world into a career that could support a family.
I learned from some old time ski bums (some friends, some friend's parents) that there was a time when someone could make shit work doing manual labor or skilled labor in a ski town. One of my college roommate's dad was a carpenter in Aspen in the 70s and was able to buy land next to town and build one room cabin that he turned into a 3 bedroom house over several years. He and his buddies would help each other build houses in their free time.
Another college friend's dad was able to buy a house in Aspen in the late 70s/ early 80s working as a restaurant manager.
I know another old school ski bum guy who spent summers growing weed in Hawaii and winters renting a large house in Chamonix in the winter. He'd sublease rooms in the house to make additional money. He's now married with kids and owns a sweet little guest house.
Yetiman was able to bust his ass hustling in the fire world and ski world and afford to own a house in SLC.
It seems to me that most of those opportunities are now gone. There is no longer cheap land for next to any ski resort in the western US for a carpenter to buy. The soft drug trade has dried up as weed became legalized, restaurant managers can't afford to buy houses within 100 miles of the ski resort where they work, etc.
With real estate prices where they are now, it's also no longer possible to afford a house close to skiing by digging fire line in the summer.
I sold out to pursue a career and now own a house next to mountain biking and trail running in the front range. I-70 sucks, but I'm able to ski 30+ days a year and usually go on 2-3 week long ski trips per year all over the world. My career job, as frustrating as it can be, also offers a decent lifestyle- I've spent the past 5 years traveling around Europe, Asia, Australia and Africa on the company dime.
It sucks to say it, but there is a deadline for launching most professional careers. It's rare for someone in the "real" world to take a chance hiring someone in their mid-30s for a cush, high paying career with upward mobility that doesn't have experience in whatever industry that is. Those jobs go to promising 20 somethings who have recently graduated, are coming out of internships, etc.
The longer you hang out on pleasure island living in a ski town the less opportunities there are to launch a career and every year there are less opportunities in ski towns due to stagnant local wages and ever increasing costs. Add in issues with housing shortages due to short term rentals and out-of-towners buying up houses at prices way above what locals can afford and there is an ever shrinking environment for a ski bum to exist.
Stay on pleasure island for two long and there is a very real threat of waking up in a ski town in your 40s without options for providing for yourself and/or your family and with no options for making shit work back in the real world. When you eventually wash out to some shitty job in a less desirable, more affordable location there will be an endless line of wide eyed kids wanting to take your place who are willing to trade their future for a couple years of "mountain lifestyle".
Well, either that or you may be able to turn into bunion or fastfred.
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07-10-2019, 01:59 PM #155
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07-10-2019, 02:44 PM #156Registered User
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I have to agree with this. I made the switch from wildlandfire and seasonal work in my early 30's. This was a combination of realizing I wasn't doing what I wanted to do, was not saving enough to retire, had no savings if something bad happened and was wearing my body down.
Went back to school for 3 years. It's fucking expensive and I will be paying it off for a long while to come.
It was very difficult to land an entry level job in my field. I made it happen, but was commuting 1.5 hours one way for several years and had to take a tangential route to move into the position I wanted. Current state of the labor market meant I was able to get on track and am making relatively good money with good benefits and security.
Super glad I made the move now that I have kids.
Not sure how that all would have worked out in a different labor market.
My wife is doing what detrusor did. It's crazy hard and all consuming.
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07-10-2019, 04:44 PM #157
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07-10-2019, 04:57 PM #158
In a lot of ways this is just like any other sport. For every mlb player there are hundreds if not thousands who played a year or two of A ball, or whatever, and it just didn’t click together.
If you knock around playing AA until you’re 38 and make no money, good luck transitioning to bus driving....not that it’s not doable, but it’s going to be heartbreaking and painful.
Jen Hudak is doing some work on this stuff...transitions from being an athlete to the next phase. It’s a hard thing.
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07-10-2019, 05:08 PM #159
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07-10-2019, 05:59 PM #160
When did you "throw in the towel"?
This isn’t rocket science - get a skill that you can be paid for and start gaining experience and finding a place that is a compromise between career and fun
The op has no skill set except working hard. That’s what got my parents by. They are immigrants with a high school education. That shit does not fly anymore
Again to the OP - no one cares about your family business
Can you do bookkeeping? Do you know accounting
Can you set up a network, fix a pc?
Get some skills and stop fucking whining - I graduated from college at 34 with a business degree and made a career but I don’t have this notion that I need to be a rockstar on powder days at world class resorts that I live by
Wake the fuck up
Listening to anything trusty Fred says is a bad idea because you don’t have a trust fund - deal
The best advise I can tell you is marry someone that is on the same page as you
My ex decided we were moving to Vermont and then we ended up divorcing
My life would be shit ton better if she decided to divorce me in seattle where we put our careers together
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07-10-2019, 06:01 PM #161Stay on pleasure island for two long and there is a very real threat of waking up in a ski town in your 40s without options for providing for yourself and/or your family and with no options for making shit work back in the real world. When you eventually wash out to some shitty job in a less desirable, more affordable location there will be an endless line of wide eyed kids wanting to take your place who are willing to trade their future for a couple years of "mountain lifestyle".
Well, either that or you may be able to turn into bunion or fastfred.
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07-10-2019, 06:16 PM #162
No kidding
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07-10-2019, 08:14 PM #163
You are 62? Why do you think your timing is relevant to someone who's mid-30s? It's not "results vary" it's "past performance is not indicative of future performance".
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07-10-2019, 08:18 PM #164
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07-10-2019, 08:26 PM #165
A couple things. Assuming it is PhishShow, he gets props from me for being his real self on here over the years. He acts a little AKPM, and some of us fling him some shit. Been that way for decades now.
Teachers, plumbers, waiters and retail managers are buying homes all over the intermountain west. Not in the most expensive zip codes, but it can be done.
If you are in your 30s and are categorizing your life as "throwing in the towel", I think you have bigger questions than where to live. I'm certainly not the best person to take advice from as I don't always have the best attitude, but life is what you make of it. Easier said than don't, but you gotta figure out what makes you happy.
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07-10-2019, 08:29 PM #166
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07-10-2019, 08:47 PM #167
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07-10-2019, 08:54 PM #168
plumber
electrician
$$$$$ min show up fee
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07-10-2019, 09:07 PM #169
Where? For serious. I'd like to know.
Re: the OP-
I've never met the dude, but it seems that he f'd around in college and focused on skiing on his parents dime. If I remember correctly, he was one of the only CU kids good enough at skiing to hang with the core TGR Colorado croud back in the day. Not sure if he graduated but eventually he went back to NJ and his parents bailed him out with a job managing their carwash.
Lots of life experience later (GF left when she graduated nursing school, etc) and he made the existential choice to move back out west to find the happiness he left behind. This probably meant walking away from the family bankroll?? That's a big choice, and one that I'm sure wasn't made lightly.
From the sounds of it, he's been trying to work different angles in the real estate world and doing other stuff to get by.
Look dude, I don't know you but there is no reason for the alias. Lots of people on TGR know little bits about your story and it seems like you are well liked by people who know you in real life. Seems like the reputation from 10 years ago of being a kinda out of touch spoiled CU kid is long gone.
A lot of us on here were naive CU kids who had been sheltered from real life experience. I'm sure some of the shit I talked about and posted on here when I was 20 is cringe worthy.
Did you finish your degree? What's it in? Do you have a dream job? What is it? What parts of the work you've done do you enjoy the most?
Good luck, OP.
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07-10-2019, 09:24 PM #170Where? For serious. I'd like to know.
Oh yeah...people in glass houses and all that regarding what you wrote about WRG.
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07-10-2019, 09:32 PM #171
I moved halfway way around the world in my thirties... to where I wanted to live.
I don't listen to the present 30 somethings about how they couldn't make it work away from their family jobs or lack of capital investment or over qualification for being an employee like the OP does.
Listening to the crusty fucks who made it work might be his answer?
Maybe asking the crusty fucks before he moved there and couldn't make it work might have helped?
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07-10-2019, 09:38 PM #172
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07-10-2019, 09:40 PM #173
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07-10-2019, 09:53 PM #174Registered User
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07-10-2019, 10:05 PM #175
Has to be noted again. Mad props.
I saw what you did and it's worth quoting here.
Yo Bobby, I'm with ya. To quote F. Scott Fitzgerald (loosely), "it's never too late to start again... I hope you have the courage to do so."
Probably ski ice moguls worse than anyone on the planet ever and brag about it to the world. Then go ice surfing and brag about it.
One day all your talk about Londonderry is going to end up with a sea of Maggots descending upon Londonderry like abused and broken lemmings. And then what? Who will feed them their drugs?
Yup, worth noting. #candide
Cheers, brother.
"is it?"
I still call it The Jake.
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