dagoski | Toledo, alas... (Reply)

We've arrived safely in Toledo. We've halfway unpacked in a charming apartment in a thoroughly charmless section of Toledo. Which means we could be just about anywhere in the city. Actually, the place isn't half bad. I've found a nice little coffee house a couple of blocks from the apartment. Campus is probably two miles from the front door. The people here all have language, use tools and have at least some command over fire. That means they're an evolutionary step up from most Philadelphians. They're also polite and don't resent you bitterly for expecting them to do their jobs. Basically, the social contract, while stressed, is still intact here. The contract in Philadelphia was torn up and flushed a long time ago and it shows in your daily interactions with most citizens there. And, did I mention, the place is cheap? I mean spectacularly cheap to live. If you're pursuing a career that is not a 9 to 5 office or factory job, this would be a good place to set up; art, music or writing for instance. You can get a two bedroom apartment here for bit over $500/month. Food's pretty inexpensive as well. Car insurance? I'm paying $120/yr. That's right, per year! The trick is finding a job that is not retail, warehouse or factory. The creative economy has definitely not hit this town, yet. First Solar down the road is hiring all sorts of engineers and scientists. They're poised to do to Toledo what Microsoft did to Seattle.

It's weird coming back to the Midwest, though. Everyone drives an American car. Casual and shallow displays of patriotism abound. Religion is worn on one's sleeve. Trucks routinely have provocative religious messages. The pick of the bunch was a semi truck with the following emblazoned on the side in one story tall letters: "Jesus Christ is Lord is not a four letter word!". File that one under stuff you learn in the first grade. You're definitely not on the coast anymore in Ohio.

Also, I'm trying to figure out what kind of broadband service to get. Looks like Buckeye Cable is the best provider locally. All I have to do select the level of service. Since I hope to to be doing some consulting in the near to mid future, I need decent upstream speeds. What speed do y'all like for doing X-Windows forwarding? We can fairly easily afford a 600 kbps upload speed or can stretch and get the 1 Mbps speed. Either one provides more download speed than I'll likely use.