Dallas to New York & Halloween

In August I received an offer from a company out of New York City that seemed too good to be true and it was closer to the schools Arielle wanted to go to in the northeast. I liked my job in Dallas but we knew we would eventually move so that Arielle could pursue her PhD. It was really hard leaving all my colleagues at Comerica as we had some really good times and most days it felt like home. Once I left we were stuck in a weird limbo. I flew back and forth between Dallas and NY with my company giving me eight weeks before I needed to be moved to NY. I was living out of hotels and corporate housing, working, and trying to find a place to live in NY while Arielle was packing, organizing our move, closing our lease, and working. It was my first time in NY so it was quite the shock.

 

 

View from my Long Island City hotel.

The view from my corporate office.

 On my end I needed to find an apartment so I had Arielle fly up one weekend to help me look. Being from the west coast I required a minimum of 1,000 square feet, a safe neighborhood, and the ability to have cars. This ruled out most of the boroughs especially with the city tax and the fact that rent is crazy in NY. For example, I stayed in corporate housing on the upper eastside in a 300-350 square foot studio, which was on the first floor (this reduces the price) for $4,200 per month. We ended up looking at a few places over a holiday weekend but some of them were closed so we didn't find anything. I ended up going to New Jersey a few times and found a place that met all of our needs and wants.



300-350 sqft studio.

Corporate housing was near central park.

The weekend of the move I flew back Thursday night and ended up packing and working until 1am, got up the next day packed with Arielle, the Walkers, and friends. We got up early the next day and drove to Roanoke, Virginia in a day. Then from Virginia to Weehawken, NJ to our final destination. We were lucky to have the Walkers there to help with driving our second car and unloading all of our stuff.

We're glad to finally be all moved to the northeast and have been exploring around Jersey. New York City is too much to handle for extended periods of time but we love Jersey. Below are some pictures from a park near us.

Fort Lee Historic Park

Fort Lee Historic Park

On top of all this my new job wasn't what was pitched to me so I have been searching for a new job during this crazy move and settling in. I ended up finding a job closer to what I was doing at Comerica with my usual work benefits and I start November 30th.

Also to catch up on Halloween, we carved Pooh Bear (Arielle) and Snoopy and Charlie Brown (Dimitri). We had three kids stop by which was three more than we had last year. That has been the crazy of ending summer and fall of 2015 and Arielle is in the process of applying for PhD programs. Once this settles down we'll be excited for a break in the chaos.



 

2015 Pumpkin

Graduation and Move to Dallas

Since the beginning of 2014 the Bianco's have been very busy. Arielle graduated in December with a Masters of Science in Kinesiology with emphasis in Motor Control and Development and I graduated in May with a Masters of Applied Economics in Financial Engineering. Arielle waited to walker until I graduated in May so that we could both walk together and family would just need to travel to Michigan once. Even looking back today it is hard to believe that we both have masters degrees as the time went so fast. Ann Arbor was a great place and we will miss it and our friends from Michigan.

 

After graduation I didn't have a job and we had no idea what we were going to do. Our lease on our school apartment ended at the end of June so we had to find somewhere else to move to. We looked at a few apartments and were prepared to move if we had to. I got an interview at Comerica in Dallas June 9th and had a good time interviewing. Once I got back I knew the chance of getting the job was still slim so I continued to apply for jobs and targeted Comerica's competitors. Huntington Bank called me that same week and had me come down at the beginning of the next week to interview. Arielle had never been to Columbus, Ohio so I took her with me. I was running late to my interview and about 10 minutes from Huntington I got a call from Dallas with a job offer. I told Comerica I would think about their offer and continued on with my interview at Huntington. I had another good interview at Huntington but told them I already had another offer. They responded that they didn't want to get into a pricing war so I told them I'd call them later that day with my decision to whether I wanted to be considered for their position. It was a tough decision to choose between the two. Comerica had a larger staff that would be helpful in career development and support while Huntington lacked the support but they would offer great responsibility since I would be one of the few calling the shots on the model development. I decided to go with Comerica since I liked the team and they made me an offer that I don't think Huntington would have matched. That night a recruiter at Huntington called to see if they could make me an offer before I made any decisions but I had already made up my mind.

So Arielle and I planned to move in a week and a half from when I accepted my offer. It was crazy as we quickly packed everything, set up the moving truck, cleaned the apartment, and looked for a new place to live in Dallas. We found an apartment online and luckily had our friend Alex help us load all of our stuff. We made the trip to Dallas in two days and Arielle's brother Nick was able to come up from Austin to help us unload. Once we arrived at our new apartment we signed the paperwork and walked into the place to smell heavy cigarette smoke. We went back and told them we couldn't move in. They took us to look at a few other apartments that all smelled like smoke. They said they would refund us everything but the application process fee and we were fine with that. Now the panic set in as we had nowhere to go. We went to Starbucks and started looking for new places that were on our list we had made before we moved. Nick arrived and we were able to park our moving truck while he drove us all over Dallas looking at places to move to. Towards the end of the day we ended up at Gramercy on the Park and really liked the apartment. They were very nice and stayed late so that we could process all of our paperwork and move in that night.

The three of us almost died that night as we unloaded our entire truck, we finished at about 1:00 am. If you aren't from Texas you need to know that it only cools down to about 75 or 80. I knew we had to unload it all now or we would have to unload the next day when it was 100. Nick stayed for a few days and helped us setup the large furniture. Now we are all moved in and exploring Dallas and our new surroundings.