1/15/2022

Hello Blog Readers!

It’s hard to believe that it has been over two months since my last big road trip. That epic trip took me on a month-long journey through the northeastern part of the United States during peak fall season. After spending the holidays with my family in Omaha, I am now back on the road again – this time for a month long trek through the southeastern part of the country. With the exception of Virginia, I should be hitting every state of the old Confederacy.

Of course, as everyone learns in high school history (you know, that thing I used to teach), the southeastern United States of the 1800s was largely an agrarian society steeped in racism; poverty for virtually everyone except for a few elitist, slave-owning land barons; and…good manners and charm? It was an odd combination. Luckily, things have changed a lot since the 1800s. Today’s south can be characterized as being more cosmopolitan and more racially diverse than large swaths of the northern United States. In fact, whereas my trip to the north saw me largely in rural areas, my trip to the south will almost entirely be spent in cities. There’s not much way around it. Another big city is just a few hours further down the road in the south. And those foundations of good manners and charm? They have evolved into an entire culture unique to the area. Indeed, southern manners and southern hospitality are stereotypes that many Americans think of when they think of the south. More negative stereotypes unfortunately also remain. There is still a lot of poverty and wealth disparity throughout the south, although at this point in history you could probably say that that is true of just about anywhere in the United States, if not on planet Earth. Sigh…

So what have I been doing over the past few months? Well, outside of spending time with family, I have mostly just been trying to figure out my future and keep my brain active with lots of reading and puzzle-solving. Oh, and getting over what I believe was a mild bout of omicron around the New Year (I am really getting tired of Covid…). In any event, here is some wisdom that I have gained over the past few months, together with a few life updates:

• I am way too old to be living with my parents! I love them and appreciate them, but will nevertheless be going into high gear finding work and making plans to move out as soon as I get back from this trip.
• Time travels ridiculously fast when you are not working. It is mind boggling to think that I moved away from California four months ago. I haven’t been working for four months now! But it still feels like I just moved out of Red Bluff yesterday. I have a new appreciation for those who move or take time between jobs, and better understand just how long it can take to process loss, big changes, and finding the next thing in life. It’s not a laziness thing so much as a…life just keeps moving thing. It’s kind of tough to explain or comprehend when all you knew before was working nonstop.
• The above being said, I am definitely making progress on figuring out where I am going next. After my trip through the northeast and my holiday downtime, I have narrowed my list of potential places to live to Marquette, Michigan; Southern New Hampshire; and Omaha, Nebraska. That makes this trip a lot easier, as it is more about having fun with old friends and going on adventures than finding a new place to live. Of course, if somewhere stands out to me I will look into that place too, but I am currently putting all of my energy into orchestrating a move to one of the above places. Okay, it’s a bit unbalanced as a lot of my energy is now going into Marquette, a place I fell in love with back in October. It’s a college town (home of Northern Michigan University), around Chico-sized, nestled off the beaten path on the Upper Peninsula shores of Lake Superior, with crystal clean air and outdoor recreation galore, and I just felt so at home there. Here’s a refresher of what it looked like while I was there:

• Which brings me to my big announcement: I am currently in the process of applying to graduate school at Northern Michigan University and the University of New Hampshire (the University of New Hampshire is in Durham, New Hampshire, just north of Portsmouth, another place I fell in love with). Believe it or not, I am going for a Master’s or PhD in pure mathematics, something which is probably long overdue in my life for anyone who knows me well. I am hoping to do research and a thesis in geometry and/or number theory and have already been brushing up on group theory and abstract algebra to help with the project. But as a backup plan to a thesis route, NMU’s program offers further security as it is well-known for providing a project emphasis in financial mathematics. Particularly it lets you declare a specialty in actuarial math, something I feel I’d be well-situated for given my economics and law background. I even know an actuary down in Birmingham, Alabama – a former friend from my UCSB days – who I plan to catch up with during this trip. Everything just seems to be coming together and making more sense. Anyways, my feedback from both universities’ math chairs has been positive, but NMU’s in particular has been very positive. My 10-year background as an attorney and educator in rural, Northern California seems to meld perfectly with a rural, Northern Michigan college town, and the chair has been very encouraging through my application process and in finding ways to inject me into their local community so that I could be lecturing, learning, and possibly even helping some attorneys in the area as early as this summer. It may not be long before I am back to something that looks in many ways like my pre-pandemic, pre-disaster life in Northern California.
• “But what about Omaha?” you might ask. Well, Omaha has been interesting and was for a time top-of-my-list for the next move in life. After all, it is my hometown, my family lives there, I have plenty of friends and connections there, and it is the home of my alma mater, Creighton. I even had some potential job prospects in the area back in November, but when I got around to sharing my background and story with those prospects, my story just wasn’t jiving with them the way it does in say Michigan or New Hampshire. Needless to say, I basically flunked my initial meet-and-greet with these potential employers. I have some theories as to why my Nor Cal background and work history doesn’t seem to interest Omahans in general, but whatever the reason, there’s a disconnect there that I haven’t yet been able to overcome. Luckily, before heading down here to Oklahoma City I shared a beer with an old Creighton Law School friend, someone who knows me and understands what I’m looking for in a professional career in Omaha, and I think he’s going to work with me to try to solve this puzzle and locate some inroads and connections with Omaha employers who might appreciate my background and skillset. If I can find the sort of professional work that I am looking for in the Omaha area, then I am still receptive to living there. But I suppose the first step is finding people in the Omaha metro area who know me, understand what it was I was doing for the North State, and who want to shepherd that talent towards careers and opportunities in the community. I guess time will tell…

Which brings me to where I am right now: Oklahoma City! I actually don’t have much to say about Oklahoma City because I am spending my time here basically doing nothing but relaxing in my hotel room and eating good food. It seems like a nice, clean city though – sort of a southern version of Omaha in size and feel. I wasn’t even intending to be here, but when I heard that Omaha was going to get a winter storm Friday evening, I decided to avoid the storm by heading down here Friday morning.

My plan worked, I avoided the snow storm, but now the edge of the storm is making Oklahoma City very cold and windy today. With windchill, it’s about 8 degrees outside. So, it’s not an exploring day, it’s a lounging day. Tomorrow the storm will be far to the east, things will warm back up, and I will be starting the trip for real in wonderful Hot Springs, Arkansas! Get ready for a bunch more travel posts to the travel blog. 🙂

Cheers,

-Rob