I grew up near Washington DC (a hellhole worse than Massachusetts) and was working for the federal government and one of the few businesses trips I ever made was to Santa Cruz. From the minute I got off the plane I knew I wanted to leave the east coast and move west. It gnawed at me for a couple of years and my very new wife got a job offer at a cell phone startup and we packed the bags and left all our friends and families and never looked back. 28 years later we are still here.