Impressions of Indiana
News ·Tuesday June 18, 2013 @ 19:36 EDT (link)
We've been in Indiana—NE of Indianapolis, in the town/city of Fishers in fast-growing Hamilton county—for about two months now, so it's time for some initial impressions.
We haven't had much of a chance to travel around the state and see the scenery, except on driving I-70 to WV and on the drive up, which we plan to remedy—it would be nice to get out to some parks. We did get to go to Lafayette for a gun rally, though.
The area is nice; people are friendly; there's sort of an "Anytown, USA" feel about it; it is distinguished more by its *lack* of distinguishing features that, say, Florida, Boston, or Seattle had. Most construction is fairly recent, so streets are wide and there's plenty of parking. There's some construction nearby on the IN-37/I-69 which slows down getting to/from work sometimes, but it's not a huge deal. It's been warm since we got here; the coldest I've been is when I got up at 0700 back in April for a "Fishers Code and Coffee" meetup.
We've been looking at houses—trying to find something balanced between all of our needs and wants: not too far from work, trees (since it was all cornfields not too long ago, that's not as easy as it sounds), land (enough for a private shooting range, although as flat as it is that might require moving in some earth for berms), a reasonably modern house with a nice kitchen, perhaps a deck and/or pool—the usual things people look for. Our real estate agent has us on an automatic search that sends us new properties and updates periodically. There are some "maybes" but nothing perfect—older or tiny houses tend to go with a lot of land, for example.
Work has been interesting: being a lead for the first time, which really wasn't as strange or difficult as I expected; my two secret weapons (OneNote and Source Insight) have stood me in good stead, and I've made a release of the API on schedule and submitted some changes for a key partner well ahead (which will be part of another release). I have a lot of ideas for improvement (e.g., automated testing) which I will have opportunity to implement (or oversee implementation). And the developer "brown bag" lunch talks that took six months to get set up/approved the last place I worked are starting tomorrow after minimal fuss.
We like the area; the biggest problem so far is that our LTCH (License to Carry Handgun) is expected to take three months (even though the law says we are supposed to get it in 60 days); but the state's protection rackets will be with your alway, even to the end of the earth. (Next up, we need driver's licenses, which hopefully won't be such a miserable process as to merit its own post.)
Books finished: The 50 Best (And Worst) Business Deals of All Time.
