Where I want to live

Criteria:

1. Palm trees and sunny beaches
2. Close enough to visit my family regularly
3. Has all 4 seasons, winter in moderation
4. Good hiking and camping and walking
5. Has houses that are not in developments
6. Good local government - schools, libraries, police, roads, recycling*!
   
7. The grocery stores carry gnocchi and prosciutto and avocados and nutella and stromboli
8. Lots of good restaurants, Italian and sushi and Indian and Thai and Chinese and pizza
9. Close enough to a city so that I can go to museums and theater when I want
10. Nice spas
11. Has people who don't call me "y'all" or "sweetheart" when they don't know me. Or "ma'am."
12. Cost of living is not too high

*Apparently Houstonians don't recycle because they are so "independent." Yeah, that's bright, wasting resources which are becoming scarcer is very independent, good job guys.

Oh yeah, and someplace I can get paid to live. That's the hard part, unfortunately. I love working in the space program, and I think it is the most important thing we as a culture should do for our future, but I am really getting tired of Houston. I don't want to buy a house here. I don't want to live here.

I've kind of kicked around the idea of getting a Ph.D and working for a university, doing research and teaching, and I think it could be cool. I'd have a lot more options on where to live that way. I'd probably focus on Astrophysics, cause that's what interests me most.

I just don't know if I would be as happy doing something that I liked in a place that I liked, if I'm not working on something I feel is as important to the entire human race as exploring and colonizing space. The space program gives us a direction as a society, something to work towards, something amazing that no one has ever even come close to doing in the thousands of years we've existed as a species. I feel that the work I do now, small a part of the program as it is, will someday enable people to live wherever they want, give people options about what planet to live on if we continue to trash this one and make it uninhabitable.

I kind of think of it like building Magellan's boat, I may never get to travel as far the craft I work on but someday people will cross the distance without thinking twice about it, and their lives will be better and richer and they will be more free than I can imagine now.

Maybe I can do research that is needed for space exploration, and help indirectly with it.