New in Town: Phoenix Metro

Just did two things I pretty much swore I would never do.  The first thing being factoring a guy into my location decisions.  I was the last person who ever thought they would uproot and relocate for a relationship, yet here I am sitting in my awesome apartment in Scottsdale, Arizona. . . alone because things didn't work out and that is fine because Scottsdale, Arizona could just as easily be Scottsdale, California and I LOVE me some Cali. Which leads me to the next thing I swore I would never do and that is live in the blazing heat of Arizona.  For years my friend in northern Arizona has been trying to talk me into moving here and I told here absolutely insert expletive here not.  No expletive here way are you ever going to see my expletive here living in expletive here Arizona.  It's too expletive here hot!  That being said, so far I effing love it here.

Lesson learned: never say never.  Every time I have I end up doing whatever it is I said I would never do (for example: get drunk).  Whereas, the things I set out to do (for example: try marijuana at least once) I have never done.  So there you go.  Oy.

As a result, I thought it would be fun/entertaining/informative/whatever for me to write about some of the things I try out here as someone new to town. Something I have discovered upon moving here is that 95% of the people living in the Phoenix metro area aren't actually from this here, which could explain the odd midwestern accent that seems to be prominent.  That could also explain why that same 95% of the population is freakishly polite, which I appreciate going back to the whole being new to this area thing.  

My goal is to try out non-chain places that are not readily available everywhere else and review them so as to keep a record of places I like, love, or would never go back to along the way.  I don't believe people are really considered a local somewhere until they've been in that area at least a year and can navigate the street system without relying on a map (I have two in my car just in case).  Part of my quest in all this is to find a non-Starbucks coffee shop to become a regular at. Nothing against Starbucks, I heart them as much as the next java junkie, but I like to support local businesses whenever possible in order to make a small difference in the world, especially since the economy bottomed out and I saw first hand in the city I moved here from how quickly a small business owner's dreams can shatter (literally overnight, in case anyone was wondering).  Other things I am looking to discover: local musicians to become a groupie to, artsy stuff, outdoorsy naturey type stuff that I normally wouldn't consider due to weather restrictions but here that's only an issue like 2 months out of the year, shopping, dining, etc.  

We'll see how this goes considering my last post was forever ago so I can say that I am consistently inconsistent in my blogging efforts.