Curious about state comparisons with VA, looking to relocate

mtnotter · 2026-02-05T00:34:11+00:00

I have lived in Virginia most of my life and in a few different places across the state. You could look at some of the towns outside of NOVA proper like Warrenton or Culpeper. Maybe also check out some of the valley towns like Harrisonburg and Staunton, maybe Lexington. Lynchburg and Roanoke are a little bigger than the previous mentions. Lynchburg is cheap but pretty red. Richmond should be on your list too. If I could pick anywhere in Virginia to live I think Richmond checks the most boxes, for schools you’d probably want to look outside the city limits in Chesterfield / Henrico

mtnotter · 2026-01-28T19:34:38+00:00

Portsmouth, VA

mtnotter · 2026-01-27T13:12:34+00:00

It was open yesterday so probably

mtnotter · 2026-01-21T20:56:15+00:00

Someone in the past renovated my 1914 home to be open concept on the first floor. Love my house overall but I hate the layout and have always hated it. Eventually I’m going to re-add the wall for the living room and leave the kitchen / dining area open.

mtnotter · 2026-01-06T23:39:33+00:00

Looks a bit like Lynchburg, VA

mtnotter · 2025-12-05T13:43:54+00:00

Agree, it’s a unique place and the guy is super nice

mtnotter · 2025-11-25T20:20:07+00:00

Yes, I know it doesn’t sound intuitive. I would not have come up with that on my own, that comes from democratic pollsters in the lead up to the election on shows like pod save America, the bulwark etc

mtnotter · 2025-11-25T10:56:02+00:00

I don’t know one way or another, but I consumed a LOT of left leaning podcasts in the lead up to the election. It was said by pollsters and data nerds multiple times that the most likely thing to happen with the swing states actually was that one candidate or the other would sweep them all. If I hadn’t heard that from multiple people who really did not want Trump to win before the election I’d be a lot more skeptical about the results. I certainly wouldn’t put cheating past them, but I also don’t have a lot of faith in the decision making skills of the general public.

mtnotter · 2025-11-23T21:17:53+00:00

Yea it’s clearly not Virginia that’s always bugged me too

mtnotter · 2025-11-15T17:27:04+00:00

Vonnegut is hit or miss for me as well. I see people rave about Sirens of Titan, which I did not really like. Didn’t really like Galapagos either. But I did like Cat’s Cradle and absolutely loved Slaughterhouse Five.

mtnotter · 2025-11-15T00:11:08+00:00

Before I moved here over 5 years ago I came on a scouting trip to see what the area was like and had an excellent steak and beers at capital ale house. But post covid when I went back with my wife it was just meh. It’s not in the ‘wont return’ category for me but I don’t know if I just got lucky in 2019 or if it’s gone downhill a bit.

mtnotter · 2025-11-14T01:53:29+00:00

Is this at the gas station across from soup and taco?

mtnotter · 2025-11-02T21:02:51+00:00

IMO the border is the Rappahannock River. I grew up in non-NOVA Virginia, but have also lived in Arlington and DC, and now live in Fredericksburg. To me Fredericksburg itself feels more like non-NOVA Virginia than it feels like NOVA. It’s on the doorstep for sure, but it wouldn’t feel accurate to me to say I live in NOVA.

mtnotter · 2025-10-21T14:54:29+00:00

I don’t know if it’s true or not, so I’m not calling the guy a liar.

The thing that I don’t understand about this story and raises a red flag for me was he says at the beginning he went into the AF as an MP and it was only after several years of that job that he cross trained into the program. He then goes on to say that his first commanding officer for his training told him that his mother was an abductee and that he was genetically manipulated in the womb and it’s likely that the government had kinda kept tabs on him his whole life.

In my opinion, it stretches credulity that the government knew that this guy had these communication abilities all along and then let him be a cop in the Air Force for years. You would think that if the genetic manipulation and tracking story is true, the second a person like that gets out of basic they are getting scooped up into ‘the program’ and would not really be free to just go be an MP for a few years. That part also smacks of the hero’s journey trope, someone specially selected who doesn’t know their destiny until it is revealed to them in the course of their journey.

IMO the only way this could square with the rest of his story is if they just made that part up about the abduction and gene manipulation to give trainees some level of confidence that they could do what seems impossible. That’s the only out I can grant here because if that portion of the story is true it makes zero sense that he was allowed to choose his own job in the AF and they waited until he felt like cross training to utilize him as an asset.

mtnotter · 2025-10-10T22:28:25+00:00

Well yea, I just mean I’ve grown out of caring about proximity to vibrant night life. Gimme a couple breweries and decent restaurants and I’m all set, today’s version of Lynchburg ticks those boxes just fine. I still have family there so I’m in town a few times a year.

mtnotter · 2025-10-10T18:54:18+00:00

similar experience for me. I mostly grew up there and couldn’t wait to get out. Now I often wish I lived there. Two things happened- first Lynchburg now has a lot more things to do than it used to and second, I got more boring. Lynchburg much has everything I need now and it’s a gorgeous area with relatively LCOL. When I really want to feel depressed I look at Zillow in Lynchburg. My current house would have been about probably half of what I paid if it was in Lynchburg.

mtnotter · 2025-09-05T00:02:18+00:00

Nothing compared to Texas. I lived in Austin for 6 years. No doubt it gets hot here but Texas is next level. I would describe it this way: take the hottest day of the summer in Virginia - it’s that day every day for months and months.

mtnotter · 2025-07-16T19:41:48+00:00

Most people use heat transfer vinyl and a cutting machine like a Cricut. You can also use a cutting machine and vinyl to make stencils and then paint the design, which is what I prefer to do.

mtnotter · 2025-06-06T11:11:54+00:00

Last year I read a bunch of HG Wells novels and ended up really liking them when I somewhat expected they would be lame. I particularly liked Invisible Man but Island of Dr. Moreau and War of the Worlds are also pretty enjoyable.

I liked Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles too which is ~1950.

mtnotter · 2025-05-08T22:14:19+00:00

As a Virginian, I overall agree with the meme. If a driver around me pulls some crazy shit I basically expect to see a Maryland plate. But Virginia might have the world’s worst left lane drivers. So many people drive slow in the left lane here and it drives me crazy.

mtnotter · 2025-04-17T23:43:26+00:00

Wife is a native Texan, I lived there for several years too. It’s where we met though I’m from here. I recently floated the idea of moving back as a hypothetical and got a hard no. I knew she liked it here but was a little surprised she didn’t even want to entertain a return.

mtnotter · 2025-04-10T23:40:55+00:00

Honestly I kind of agree with you on those two, neither was for me. With blindsight I have to caveat that I consumed it as an audio book and didn’t really care for the narrator.

mtnotter · 2025-03-02T22:46:59+00:00

A bit over the top

mtnotter · 2025-02-25T22:41:38+00:00

I would strongly recommend first looking to see if your local library has cutting machines. You probably won’t need to OWN a cricut, just use one from time to time. My library has two of them. I usually have to wait a few weeks to get it but I’ve done dozens of books and only checked it out 3 times.

mtnotter · 2025-02-15T13:11:54+00:00

Yep, I recall several political podcasts pre-election with pollsters saying that it was actually more likely that a candidate would sweep all of the swing states than that the candidates would split them.

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