Former ID Rider

[HondaRules]

My name is Dean and I am married with 2 beautiful little girls (Ages 3 YO and the other is 4 MO). We live in Scottsdale AZ....is it winter yet? I was born in the CDA hospital on Thanksgiving day in '71....my parents were too poor at the time to buy a turkey, so they had one Then we moved to Hayden Lake up in the Rimrock area. I went to Lakeland school district for 11 years, then moved to Libby MT for my senior year Libby was fun, but the education was lacking, especially compared to Lakeland...I was retaking classes cause they didn't have anything more advanced, but that is another story. When living on the Rimrock, I was able to ride the bikes/snowmobiles from the garage to the National Forest...those were the days. After entering the NF, I normally rode up Hells Canyon Trail, then down to Horse Haven...I remember there were times we weren't sure if we had enough gas to get back home, as we turned on reserve at Horse Haven...so to conserve, we would shut off the engines and coast back down Hells Canyon since most of it is downhill, but one time I did forget about the 3 foot rock face that you drop off of towards the bottom where the trail is only about 1 1/2 feet wide, I was having kittens as I got a few feet from it when seeing it but decided I had plenty of momentum and just kept going ...it all worked out and the heart stopped racing. Hells Canyon is my favorite trail as I rode it almost daily.

After graduating from HS in '90, I moved to Phx to go to Devry where I got my BSEET. I met my wife at a New Years Eve Block party where she was in a beer garden holding 3 beers, I thought "now there's a hot chick that knows how to have fun". LOL Who would have thought that I would have met my wife at a block party on New Years Eve when both of us were pretty trashed...I still think we were drunk when we got married, so we didn't realize what we were getting into But it's been 5+ years of marriage, so we are either still drunk or things are just going well LOL

Hopefully some year I will be able to move back up there. I have taken my wife up there a couple of times now and she loves it, but all of her family lives down here,, so it is just a matter of tearing her away from them...hmm, don't think that is going to happen in the next few years since she is dependant upon them for various reasons. Oh well, at least I still get to visit my home once in a while.

I hope to meet some of you next year, as I am planning on a trip up there to revisit my favorite trail.

[cdaxena]

Hi Dean, I feel bad for you. I can tell you are very homesick. You have every reason to be. You will probably not ever be able to move back here. I had that problem when I moved from Colville. I also thought that I would go back someday but it never happened. You don't realize what you have until you loose it. I will not move from this area here to get a good job, because where I live is more important to me than the money. I am college educated but I do housecleaning for a living. A lot of folks up here don't live with the big nice toys and travel trailers because we choose to live here. Without the logging industry, we are impoverished here. It sounds like your dad may have worked for the timber industry in some way when you were growing up? Btw, what degree is BSEET?

[HondaRules]

Yep, my pops worked in the sawmill, Louisana Pacific.

BSEET - Bachelor of Science in Electronics Engineering of Technology.

I am definitely homesick. I really miss the 4 seasons. When I met and married my wife, she was all gung ho to get out of the heat....we were even looking at homes up the around the cda/spokane area. Then she got pregnant, so we held off to make sure we had insurance...now she relies on her parents too much to help with the kids, etc. But just a couple weeks ago, she made the comment that maybe we can still head up that way when the kids are a bit older, but not too old We will see. Anyway, have fun in the snow

[cdaxena]

Dean, the time to move is before your girls get too far into school. Relocating is hard on kids when they are in school. You should make the decision to move fairly soon. There are jobs around here because new houses keep going up everywhere. cdaxena

[HondaRules]

I do know what you mean, that is why I made the comment about them not getting too old. Are there any software/hardware engineering companies around there? I know of HP in Liverty Lake or at least they use to have a small plant there....that is one place I was about to send my resume at one time. It will be a couple years at least before I can start the pressure to move up there. My wife wants to wait until both kids have started school before making the move, cause then she can work as well to help support us. It will help if her brother moves to Spokane, him and his wife are indirectly looking cause they love the area. So who knows what will happen.

[cdaxena]

Dean, join our Yahoo eGroup:
groups.yahoo.com/group/CDA_Trail_Riders/join
[e-mail]. There is a guy there that manages some tech place at Liberty Lake. If you look back through the posts at the online site, you will come acrossed his post introducing himself and his family. Fire off an email to the egroup asking for help relocating back home. Also, try this forum. This Board's topic has a level of protection on it. Not everyone gets to see what we are posting here so if you want greater exposure, start a new thread in the GENERAL BOARD asking around. I don't know if you will get any action but it wouldn't hurt to try all avenues.
Also try the Spokane County Chamber of Commerce. Do a search for jobs in Spokane, Liberty Lake, Post Falls, Coeur d'Alene and Hayden. What kind of programming do you do? Esther

[HondaRules]

Thanks. I will start doing that as time gets near...right now I don't want any false hope if you know what I mean

I do embedded programming, C and assembly. If I told you exactly what I did, I would have to kill you It's all security type of stuff here for the Navy, Coast Gaurd, NSA, etc...even stuff for the Pres of US It may sound cool, but like anything else, it has it's ups/downs. One big negative is that I am literally locked in a room with no windows, so I don't even get to see what it is like outside unless I go to lunch/restroom/etc I've also done a lot of Tech type of stuff (soldering, etc) and hardware development. I tried to learn a wide range of stuff so that I would have an easier time (relatively) moving away from here. I figure with a hardware/software background, it may help find something.

Thanks for your help.

[cdaxena]

Well, I certainly don't want to be killed so I don't think I need to know I'm

[cdaxena]

Dean, will you setup a photo album of pictures for us to view where you live in Arizona. That would be very enjoyable for us up here and greatly appreciated.

[jaxonc2]

I know you - you're the person who shows up every blue moon and doesn't know where we've been but wants too. That's OKay.
I never know for sure where we've been or where we're going, but believe me we've been there, we've done (a lot if not most of) it and we're sure as heck heading in that direction.
and we're having an awesome time getting there.
Welcome aboard and greetings.

[cdaxena]

HondaRules, where at in the White Mountains did you buy property? I lived up in the White Mountain four years as a child in a logging camp community, called Maverick, on the Apache Indian Reservation. I understand it is no longer there or a ghost town now.

[dirtyguy]

get back..get back..get back to whre u wanna be....
so...just subscribe to the papers and read the classifieds every day..and check out Monster .com, and consider Boise..some hi tech there..not too far from beloved mtns and snow..Micron is pretty big.