Trying to be convinced to want to move to Maryland - Day 1

So, I'm in Maryland this weekend. It's a company sponsored "Pre-decision area tour" where we are shown the best that Southern Maryland has to offer in order to help us decide if moving here to support flight test on the F-35 is the right decision for us and our families. It's a quick trip and I'm not certain how good a feel I'll get for the area, but I think the trip will be profitable.
Today was mostly about transportation. We flew into BWI (Baltimore), collected our gear (except for one couple who's luggage missed the flight and, last we had heard, hadn't been tracked down yet, yikes!) and loaded onto the bus for the drive south. The box lunch we got wasn't bad. Excellent bread. Good brownie. The fruit wasn't the best, but it's hardly the season for melons and berries and I do appreciate the effort. After about 90 minutes, we pulled into the hotel to unload the luggage and then we were off for a tour of Pax River Naval Air Station (where, in true Navy fashion, the restrooms are "heads", you're greeted with "Welcome Aboard" and "We've got a full ship" means that everyone is present.). This is where we will be doing a majority of the Navy and Marine variants of the airplane. I recognized a few bits of the base from when I was out here in early 2001 supporting X-35C flight test. The work area is shiny and new. And it has real live windows which actually work! (It doesn't take much to exite me when I'm talking about cubeville.) After the base tour, we headed back to the hotel to get into our rooms, clean up and get ready for dinner. My duffle apparently didn't make it up to my room with the rest of the bags, but it soon arrived (thankfully).
Since I had some time, I wandered over to the Food Lion (grocery store) to stretch my legs, wander around, check prices and just have something to do. The store reminded me of the Food Lion I shopped at in Savannah (smallish with not much to really distinguish it, definitely a no-frills store). The prices were about what I expected. Fresh produce and milk were higher than at home. Packaged items were about the same or slightly higher. I didn't find any items that were lower. And no double coupons. I would say that grocery prices would be, overall, roughtly 20-25% higher for me here than at home (taking into account that I'm a big couponer). Although I only have the on data point and this does seem to be a bit more expensive of an area than some of the surrounding places. So, I could be wrong.
Dinner was pretty good. Not great, but of hotel banquet food, it was reasonable. I sat with some guys I work with, a woman from HR (definitely not an engineer), one of the real estate people who's helping to coordinate the trip and a woman who does business development in the community here. We didn't chat about the area much. Most of us were pretty tired and, honestly, just not all that up for conversations of this nature. At least not us engineers anyway. We've decided that HR and staffing people are definitely more talkative than engineers. Some might say more interesting. I tend to think it's just a difference in what we're interested in. :)

And now it's after dinner. I'm enjoying the evening with some old friends, the staff of the 4077th MASH unit. Seems that, if you have cable, just about any time of day, you can turn on the television and enjoy an episode or five. Hallmark and TV Land are currently showing episodes from sometime in the last three seasons (Radar is gone which means Klinger's no longer dressing in drag). These are my favorite episodes (I much prefer seasons 4-7ish. The Colonel Potter, BJ and Radar era, particularly when Frank was still on the show, but some of the early Charles Winchester episodes are just as much fun.). When I was living in California, I watched a lot of MASH. I identified with their situation. Stuck in a place they would rather not be, away from home, in difficult conditions (okay, mine weren't near as bad, but you get the idea) but doing the best they could to do their job and make a life for themselves. Now, when I'm traveling, I enjoy watching the episodes. I'm familiar with almost all of them (I think I've seen all of them at least once), and the show wasn't serialized enough that you have to watch them in order, so it's easy to just sit down for a bit and enjoy. And, even though I know they're just characters on television, it kinda feels like I'm among friends when I'm alone in the hotel room.

Tomorrow I get to drive around and look at housing options with a realtor. This will be my best chance to get a feel for the area. I'm still not convinced I want to move here. I don't think that tomorrow will change any of that, but we'll see. I do want to be open to the possibility. If God makes it clear that this is where He wants me to be, I'll come. But it's gonna take a pretty big sign (2x4 to the backside of the head big).

Toht, I'm hanging out in the hotel room (high speed, wireless internet, comfy office chair, wide, flat screen tv) with some old friends...the docs of the 4077th MASH.