In my last post I talked about the stars aligning. I really thought we were moving to St. George. It has been an interesting weekend to say the least.

After arriving in St. George we checked in to the hotel and I changed and went to Velocity’s office to chat with Dan Purcell, the owner. He introduced me to everyone in the office and gave me a tour. It was a far cry from Neutron we’re have a very flashy office and everyone has a MacBook Pro and two Thunderbolt Monitors on their desk (about $5,000) each. Throw in another $1,000 for the GeekDesks, which I have as well. Everyone at Velocity had cheap desks and cheap equipment. It was OK though, I could deal with that. I could even brink in and work on my own equipment.

We chatted about about two hours. I finally said, “so where do we go from here.” That’s when we talked numbers. I then learned that the most he could afford to pay me, and the most he was paying his top developers was $60,000 per year. My heart sank and I think he noticed. On top of that, I would need to pay $550 per month to insure my family.

I was totally expecting to take a pay cut to move to St. George, but this was too much. We chatted about it on the way down and decided we could take a cut as low as $80,000 per year.

I’m currently earning $105,000 per year. On top of that, Neutron covers our families’ health insurance premiums. So this would have been a very significant decrease. It would be like taking a $4300 per month pay decrease to make it work. I just couldn’t do that.

After I left the office I just felt sick to my stomach. We had dinner planned with Joshua Aikens, an employee at Velocity. Rachel felt the same way. It made dinner seem very awkward. We felt bad having them buy dinner even. We then followed them to the Tuacahn theater to watch Mary Poppins. It was a cool production to watch, but I think Rachel and I were too distracted by our thoughts to enjoy it. 

We had told so many people we were probably moving to St. George. Now, we had to be out of our house and didn’t know where we were going. 

I didn’t sleep well that night. We had dinner planned with Dan and his wife for Saturday night. I couldn’t wait that long. I called Dan about 10 am and told him that I couldn’t accept the offer. I apologized and offered to pay for our second day of the hotel. He said he would cover it still as it was a risk he was willing to take.

I explained my medical bill situation and also Gracie’s and that I just wasn’t willing to make this move right now. I think he was understanding. I also asked that we cancel dinner because I didn’t want him to have to pay for dinner for a family of six and have an awkward dinner conversation.

After breaking the new to Dan, Rachel and I felt better. We then decide to go visit the Malpas family. They had a beautiful home. It was kind of sad now knowing that we wouldn’t be living there. Gracie was actually crying in the car afterwards because she wanted to live there.

It was fun visiting the Malpas family and also uplifting chatting with Brother Malpas as he described his experience of following the Spirit and having things turn out for the best. We both felt better afterwards.

We then went to John & Lisa Justesen’s house and spend the rest of the day with them.

We went hiking on the red rocks above St. George. We then went swimming at the public pool. We then went out for ice cream. Then we drove out to Snow Canyon and went for a hike and let the kids play in the sand there in the canyon. It was an awesome day and we had a blast. I forgot all about the job. I guess that was the stupor of thought?

We went to church with the Justesens today. There was a  couple that gave talks. They had just moved to St. George after getting back from going to school in Tennessee. They talked about some non-member friends they met there and how much fun it was to be friends with them and so some missionary work. I don’t know why I keep hearing so much about Tennesse and St. George lately. It could be that these two locations have been on my mind and possible locations for us that I just notice it more, but it has been interesting nevertheless.

The Justesens invited us over for dinner after church and then we just sat and chatted for a couple house before driving home. It was great seeing Rachel relaxed and having fun with Lisa. I think Lisa’s friendship is so good for her and part of the reason I really like the idea of St. George.

Now we are looking for rental houses in North Salt Lake and Bountiful. There are not very many available so it is pretty difficult and stressful again. Welcome back to the real world I guess.