Opportunity is a knife

Lately I daydream about buying a house in Detroit for a few dollars and fixing it up. It would be a Walden experience. The house would of course have a huge lot behind it and I would farm the land. After much hard work I would sit up on my porch drinking tall boys like in Gran Torino.

That is not going to happen. But I have another daydream. This time I buy a small lot in Chicago and farm my yard on weekends. It is more like a garden than a farm. I take the train to work during the week and generally live a strange mix of urban and rural life. This might actually happen, or some variant of it.

My woman is graduating this spring. Once that happens there are many choices for us. Chicago is a real possibility, but where she would work is in Lake Forest, which is a good deal north of the city. Neither of us are looking forward to the suburbs, but there is a Metra line out there. There is a 70% chance of this.

Detroit is a view from the wasteland that won't happen for me. However, there is another option on the horizon. Vegas. There is a new facility opening in Las Vegas and they would love to hire my woman. It is a city built on dreams and stardust. It is foreclosure city USA. I could spend my days tending to the moisture vaporators and fending off Sandpeople. It would be interesting to see the meltdown so close to ground zero. I have family in Vegas too. The only problem is what would I do for work?

Sometimes it is good to take the broad perspective. If you lived in Rome in the year 1000 you probably thought the good times were gone for good. Rome had only a fraction of the population it once owned. Buildings were empty and pieces were stolen and hauled away to fit in new buildings elsewhere. Spolia they call it. Today it is called scrapping. Today Rome is bigger than ever. Other cities that looked like hits in the year 1000 are gone.

Opportunity is a knife. Sometimes you are holding the hilt, and sometimes you are stuck with the blade.