Before moving to New Mexico, I lived in the northeast for a number of years in an old steel milling town.
- It was hard living with few job prospects and lots of generational poverty.
There were scam artists operating as building contractors and they would target some of the most desperate and vulnerable people around. Thankfully I met the woman of my dreams while she was in town temporarily visiting her grandparents. We dated long distance for a year before I decided to leave this depressing steel mill town and join my girlfriend in lovely Albuquerque, New Mexico. To be honest, I used to dream about one day leaving this place behind and moving to the southwest where there are deserts and mountains for as far as the eye can see. But I didn’t expect to land in a city with such a rich cultural heritage as Albuquerque, with its dozens of Native American tribes and pueblos in and around the desert city. There are a lot of businesses here as well, particularly at the exits along Interstate 25 and Interstate 40. You still need to be careful if you’re hiring someone like a building contractor regardless of the city in which you reside. I hired a particular HVAC supplier that I found at a random Interstate 40 exit without doing proper vetting on the internet. My experience was so terrible that I went to the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce with my complaint. It turns out I’m not the first resident of Albuquerque to complain about this particular HVAC company.