Las Vegas, NM was a nice town. It was small and comfortable. Irene really felt that after all our travels we finally found a home in New Mexico.
All seemed well. The weather was nice. The house was in a nice neighborhood and we fit into it very well. There were carpets to be replaced and a lot of fixup work that had to be done, but all that was now completed and we were comfortable.
Peter was writing a weekly computer column for the local daily newspaper. He became friends with a computer store owner in town and did some consulting work that way. Irene ended up teaching a Tech Prep biology course at the same college with Peter. This was a program for a group of high school students who were getting college credit by attending classes at LVTI.
LVTI is the name of the college where Peter got the position in Las Vegas. It was Luna Vocational Technical Institute, and was one of three colleges in the town. The university was New Mexico Highlands University, and Peter soon made friends with the computer staff over there as well. He even got an account on the NMHU computer so that he could get onto the Internet.
The winter snows came, and it got a bit cold. But the snow never stayed long, and the weather seemed very acceptable the year round. There were few gloomy, cold days as we had experienced in Washington. Most afternoons, we would take a leisurely walk with the dogs on the local streets and over the hills of large open areas which were nearby. Although often windy, the walks were very pleasant.
On the colder winter days, Irene did look at the map of New Mexico and spotted the warmer areas in the South. In particular, she was intrigued with Silver City. Irene saw that this south-western New Mexico town consistently had warmer weather, and everyone we spoke with had good things to say about Silver City. Soon, Silver City became the town we would plan to retire in.
Peter had been hired to be a physics instructor but would also teach computer classes. He was the first instructor at LVTI to be teaching concurrently in two separate departments. Although he had never taught physics before, his bachelors work did include physics as a major, and he felt comfortable teaching the class. He also was teaching business computers as well as technology computer classes.
Although the teaching load at LVTI was higher than at any of the previous colleges, it was still tolerable. He did not get a private office either, but most of his preparation was done at home and the office was not a big issue.
When Peter started writing his computer column for the newspaper, he was quite proud of it and wanted to use it to promote his programs at the college. This is where the trouble began.
Most institutions would welcome an instructor who could bring good publicity for the college. In fact, Peter's supervisor and co-workers were very supportive of his writing. The college president felt otherwise. Peter soon got a call from the college public relations officer and was told that he could not use the college's name in his writing.
Although LVTI had a faculty policy manual, the administration chose to ignore the specific wording when it came to assigning teaching loads. The result was a continuing excess work load that would not be compensated. This, combined with the lack of teaching standards and not being appreciated, caused Peter to become disenchanted with his new position. Irene, for her part, was not being treated any better. If fact, she was being given an even shorter end of the proverbial stick.
Summer break was arriving, and it soon became apparent that Peter would have a choice of doing one of three things. He could teach summer classes, which he did not wish to do. He could take additional training classes. Or, he could go to work in the industry. All this was part of a program in "professional development" or self improvement.
It was strange for Peter to have to go through such training. He has two Master's degrees, while most of the teaching staff at LVTI did not even have a Bachelor's. The "improvement plan" was evidently aimed at the many instructors who lacked proper credentials, but there was no exception made for those that already had them.
Peter ended up working at Intel Corporation for a few weeks in the summer. Intel has a huge plant in Rio Rancho which is a suburb of Albuquerque. It was a two hour drive from Las Vegas, and Peter would stay in a motel for a couple of nights on the weeks that he worked. The work shifts were 12 hours long, so Peter could put in a week's work in three days. At least that made the situation tolerable.
Before Peter had to start work at Intel, we made a quick trip to California for a visit with family. One of the activities was to move Irene's mother, Ina, to Santa Barbara. She had been living with her other daughter, Katja, in Paso Robles. Since Ina was still insured with Kaiser Permanente, she needed to get closer to one of their medical centers. There are none in the San Luis Obispo area.
We managed a quick visit to aunt Irene and uncle Nickolas in Los Angeles, as well as running up to Monterey for a visit with Peter's brother George and his wife Mura. After catching our breath for a day or so, we headed for Mesquite, Nevada for a visit with Irene's brother George and his wife Monica. The visit in Mesquite was only overnight and we were soon on our way home to the New Mexico Las Vegas.
Upon our return, we managed a new addition to the family circus. Tolia, an orange tabby, came from one of Alexis' classmates. He is a nice cat, although Irene had sworn "never another cat." Alexis had to do some fast talking to convince Irene that we needed to have a third animal.
With the animal situation settled, we could focus our attention on Peter's job. When Peter had his last review, Ray (his supervisor) told him that he would be re-hired for the following year, but that he had better watch his step if he wanted to keep his job in the future. Having all of these misgivings, Peter had sent out a number of resumes to see if a better position could be found. This time we were not looking for a better place to live!
We made a few trips to Silver City during the summer, and even found a pair of lots that we bought as an investment, or for retirement. On one of the trips, Peter contacted the computer services department at Western New Mexico University which was in Silver City. Prior contact with the university indicated that a Ph.D. is expected for teaching positions, so a job in Silver City would mean having to leave teaching.
As luck would have it, there was a good chance for two computer positions. The supervisor of computer services, Bill Keehfuss, turned out to be a very congenial person and took the time to speak at length with us about the outlook for work in his department. Peter and Bill seemed to hit it off quite well, and we kept in touch.
Finally, Peter called Ray (his supervisor at LVTI) and asked him if Peter should leave his teaching position there. Surprisingly, Ray said that it as his opinion that Peter would be better off if he did leave. Ray would not say anything to the administration, and Peter could have his job if he wanted it. All that Ray asked for was a few weeks notice if Peter was to leave.
Since it seemed a possibility that we could end up in Silver City, we began to consider housing there. Silver City has appeared in two books that put it among the best places to live and retire in America. The result, is an extreme shortage of rentals as well as houses to buy. Sure, there are houses for sale. The choice, however, is: would you want to live in it, or do you want to pay that high a price for it.
The situation in Silver City is actually not much different from that in Las Vegas. We were lucky to find a reasonable house when Peter got the job offer at LVTI and we were able to make that move fairly easily.
Irene's sister Katja came to visit us in June. She wanted to see Silver City and talked us into making the trip. Since we were making the long drive, we decided to look for a house to buy. The type of house we were looking for was one that we could live in, or to rent if nothing came of a job in Silver City.
Plans were being formulated. Peter sent out a number of serious applications. He also applied to grad school at New Mexico Tech in Socorro, NM to complete a Ph.D. in computer science. Although he would have preferred to stay with computer engineering, the program at Tech was fairly simple and could be completed in three years.
If a better job was offered in a nice city, we would move. Otherwise, we would stay put till one did materialize. Grad school would be a part-time endeavor unless things really got intolerable at LVTI. If they did, Peter would become a full-time grad student till he got his doctorate.
As it turned out, our trip with Katja to Silver City resulted in finding an acceptable house. It was in a nice location, although it did need much repair work. We even underestimated the amount of repairs required, but did make a relatively low offer on it. After some negotiations, we were in escrow on the house.
One of our neighbors in Las Vegas, was Dr. Lawrence Pino, the former dean at LVTI. We got to know the Pino family fairly well since Mrs. Pino was Alexis' 5th grade teacher and her daughter, Tanya often played with Alexis, although Tanya was older and already in middle school.
Through conversations with Lawrence Pino, Peter learned that LVTI president Sam Vigil, had been pressuring Ray to get rid of Peter! Sam was not only the president of the college, but was also a state representative, and a powerful political figure in the area. Sam even had the school library named after himself.
Having purchased a house in Silver City, Irene decided that we needed to put our Las Vegas house on the market. We had not yet made up our minds about Peter quitting, but we expected that it would take some time to sell the house. We put an ad in the local paper and a For Sale By Owner sign in the front yard. In two days the house was sold!
All this was enough. Peter wrote a rather poignant resignation letter, and sent a letter to all the members of the college board. Although Lawrence Pino had expected some action, there was no response from the board. However, several faculty members who found out about it were very supportive of Peter.
Having severed ties with LVTI, we were on our way once again. This time, there was no job waiting at the destination, but we had our game plan set out. There were still several job applications pending, the job at WNMU computer services appeared to be a fair bet, and there was always the possibility of going to grad school full time. A teaching position even came up at WNMU in the computer science department. Peter tried for that one too.
The first task was getting the Silver City house prepared for living. There were carpets to be replaced and the whole inside needed repair and repainting. The previous owners had painted over everything. Doorknobs, hinges, wallpaper -- all of it was sloppily covered with paint. There was even paint on the vinyl floor in the kitchen, although the vinyl was in such poor shape that the paint may have been an improvement.
Based on recommendations from the real estate office, we hired Paula and Karen (local painters and fix anything artists) to do the inside work on the house. This needed to be done before the carpets went in. The carpets would come next and then we could move in. Vinyl would be replaced later (it was - we put in ceramic tile).
We got a desperate call from Paula. "You better call an exterminator," she said on the phone. Seems that they pulled off some baseboards and had a swarm of cockroaches sticking to the wet paint all over the walls! The house was infested. Eventually it took six sprayings in two months to get rid of them. We still cringe at the thought.
Moving day was approaching. From our moving experiences, we knew it would take two large U-Haul trucks to make the move. Peter did some calculating and decided it would be best to rent a truck one-way and bring it back to Las Vegas empty for the second load. We had an auto-transport on the back on each trip so the cars got a free ride.
Two weeks before starting with the trucks, we loaded our utility trailer with various lumber and garage stuff and took it down to Silver City. Remember, this trip is only 300 miles! We also made a trip with a U-Haul, 8 foot trailer to move boxes and some furniture for storing in the garage at the new house. This would reduce the amount of work during the full move.
There are two ways of getting to Silver City from Las Vegas. One way is via highway 152 which winds its way through the beautiful Mimbres Mountains. It is the shorter route, but is fairly steep and curvy with a high point at 8,000 feet elevation. Of course, all New Mexico is so high that 3,000 feet is a low spot.
The second route to Silver City takes its way through Hatch of Chile pepper fame. Hatch sits on highway 26, just off interstate 25. It was this fairly flat route that we chose to take with the U-Haul trailer.
It was a very warm summer day as we approached Hatch, and Peter decided that a yogurt cone from the Dairy Queen was just the right thing to get. We stopped on the outskirts of Hatch, if there is such a thing as outskirts for a town that small. Yogurt dessert was purchased and we would be on our way, or so we thought.
Peter turned the car keys to start, but nothing happened. The instrument cluster was barely responding. Sure looked like a weak battery. How could this be? We had stopped at a McDonald's in Truth or Consequences less than an hour before and there was no trouble then.
Peter checked under the hood and found the battery water level to be fine and all seemed ok, except that the battery terminals were a bit corroded. That must be it, we thought. Pounding on the terminals and twisting the cables did no good, however. It was time to call the AAA.
After being asked where we were and where in the world Hatch was, the auto club operator said that someone would be there within an hour. An hour in the heat? While we were waiting, a nice man from Texas offered to give us a jump start. He had tools and battery cables. We cleaned up the terminal connections but the battery still would not start the car. We finally tied the booster cables to the engine block and the positive terminal and got our car running again.
We thanked the nice Texan and his friend who also helped, and we were on our way. Once we got to Silver City, we found that the local Sears store did not handle batteries (it is one of only a few dealer stores that Sears still has). We ended up at an auto electric shop where the verdict was that our battery was bad. Although our Sears Die Hard was still under warranty, we had no choice but to buy a new battery from the electric shop. We later did get a refund from Sears for the unused part of the warranty, but that is another story.
For our first load with the U-Haul truck we took the same route through Hatch, but this time we did not stop at the Dairy Queen. We even tried not to look at the Dairy Queen. All seemed to go fine and we were making fairly good time. Then we came to a stop. Roadwork!
Although the route was over fairly flat desert ground, there was a ripped-up section 5 miles long that we had to traverse. The bumping and jarring that resulted made us wince at the thought of what was happening to our belongings in the truck. In all, we lost about an hour and a half on that trip.
For the last trip, Peter decided to take the mountain route. He said that all the curves would not cause as much trouble as the bumpy "flat" road and the mountain route was 50 miles shorter. The only concern was for the two low bridges on that route. It all worked out fine. The truck made it under the bridges with almost a foot clearance to spare, and the windy road was no trouble at all. We did have to go slowly, and Irene grew a bit pale through the mountain passes, but in all we even made better time than going through Hatch.
After settling in the house and evicting the roaches, we waited for Peter's interviews to come. Nothing seemed to be happening. He was not even invited for an interview for the teaching position at WNMU, although we later found that the person that was hired did not have a Ph.D. either. Intel still wanted Peter to work for them and he did make one trip back to Rio Rancho to finish up some work that he was doing for them earlier.
Peter was spending the free time fixing the house. Among other things, the windows had to be replaced. The previous owners' dog had chewed the wooden window frames down to the glass on some windows, and other windows were just plain broken. They were of single pane glass with poor insulation. Cost of repairing them was high, so we ordered new window assemblies which Peter installed himself (with Irene's help of course).
School started for Alexis and soon her teachers found out that Peter knows computers. Peter started helping in some classes and at the school library, where most of the computers are. Soon Peter was a regular volunteer worker at the middle school and high school libraries. He was even nominated to the Silver Schools technology committee which is planning the district's computer future. Peter also did a bit of volunteer work at the university.
Word came in August that the hardware technician position that Peter had applied for at the university had been filled on a temporary basis. There was an urgent need for help and Bill Keehfuss hired a temporary named Rick O'Ryan. Peter and Rick would both be competing for the one job whenever interviews were to start. Irene became depressed since it seemed an "insider" would be the natural choice for hire.
To shorten the story, Peter and Rick were the only candidates to be interviewed. Peter was hired on October 18th. Bill Keehfuss was chosen as director of computer services. This opened up a programmer position. Since Peter could also do programming and Rick could not, Peter applied for and was hired as programmer. This opened up the hardware position again and Rick was hired. Peter is now appreciated for his work, and they are all a happy family in the computer services department.
Peter was accepted to grad school at Tech and he will try to do his studies via electronic mail. Irene is helping out in the middle school nursing office as well as the library. She does this on a volunteer basis some of the time, and sometimes she is paid as a substitute. In all, we are happy and content. Especially so when we learn of the snowfalls that have already taken place in Las Vegas, NM.
A few weeks ago in November, Alexis got sick, could not breathe on a Friday evening, and ended up in the emergency room of the local hospital. The ER doctor admitted her overnight to keep a check on her breathing. She was out by the following afternoon, but what an exciting experience. Lucky that we already had insurance coverage!
That is our story for now. Note our new address and stay in touch.
Peter, Irene and Alexis Shkabara