Tag Archives: career

Blather

Leaving New Jersey Behind

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Many of my friends and acquaintances already know this so it’ll be old news, but I’m happy to write that I’m finally leaving New Jersey, once and for all.

Shocked? Well, the time has come.

Pam and I plan our lives on rather long timelines. We may not know what next week holds. But we know what we want to be doing along periods measured by several years or even decades. This chunk was to finish raising Damian, get him though High School and off to college. That part’s just about done. (I think we did a fine job of it, too. What parent doesn’t?)

So we’re off to Florida. Why the Sunshine State? Mostly for the endless motorcycle riding season. Central Florida holds some of the best riding on the east coast, and the best of that will be in our backyard. We figure it’ll hold our interest for many years to come.

Another big reason is that New Jersey is literally sucking us dry. Cost-of-living, taxes and more. So many hands in my pocket I can’t find my… well, you know. We stay here, by the time we’re ready to recreate full time there won’t be anything left.

So, we’re packing up. Taking our property, our money, our spending, our business, and all that other good stuff. Away. To where it’ll do US good.

So far we’ve acquired property, custom-designed/modified a plan (AutoCAD rocks!) for a home that’s perfect for us, contracted our builder… We’ll be breaking ground soon. And come 2013, not a dime more goes into New Jersey’s coffers. Yeah, it really feels damned good to write those words!

Over the coming months I’ll tell you more about this all-consuming adventure. You’ll hear about some of the cool people I’m meeting and doing business with.

WTF, maybe you’ll end up following us down!

“Be seeing you.”

Blather

Business Licensing in My Town

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Starting a new business is, among other things, an exercise in discovering exactly which licenses, permits and permissions one needs to obtain. My local municipality requires such a license. The application consists of a one-page form and payment of fifty dollars. It seemed simple enough.

The municipality has a decent Web site. Some might argue that the layout is hard to navigate but it doesn’t bother me. In short order I found several links to the required form. The trouble – you guessed it – none of the links worked! I played good citizen. I compiled a list which included a few other dead-ends I discovered in my quest and submitted a report. The next day my inbox held a reply. But what do you suppose I found when I returned to the site? The questionable links had simply been removed!

Following a couple of days of no progress I decided to visit the Municipal Complex in person. Just before firing up the motorcycle I checked the site for the proper form name and… what’s this? A restored link and an available form!

I pulled the downloaded PDF into an editor and went to work. Some questions struck me as odd but what the heck. I printed the result, cut a check, stuffed the envelope and sent it on its way.

In a couple of days I had voice mail from the town. We actually played phone tag for a couple more days. While playing I even tried to stop by the office twice to no avail. This was dragging on too long! But finally we made contact. Uh oh, the news wasn’t good. It looked for a moment like my application would not be approved! (Er, no mention of why my check was cleared several days previous.) Some polite conversation cleared up the issues and approval became certain. We ended with an upbeat discussion of technology and an introduction to the IT staff. Close call.

Fast forward several weeks. My license had arrived! What a disappointment. I mean, I print way better quality draft material from my inkjet. Half a colored sheet of crap-quality plain paper, n-th generation photocopy with a couple of fields inked in, they couldn’t even cut the bottom of the thing parallel to the top. To call it sloppy would be a huge compliment.

Oh well, it had a number and an official seal. And I guess that’s all that matters.