That sounds amazing! Mountains man, I'm telling you. Ha ha. Why did you move, if I may ask?!
Yes my wife and I will definitely be going to that show. We might even be in the market for a new snakey! But not sure if I can make it with all these hatchlings showing up online, ha ha. Also, I'm strongly considering a Green Tree Python!
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Jobs...New Mexico is virtually a dead end employment wise; it's a welfare state unless you're lucky enough to be employed by Sandia or Los Alamos National Labs or Intel. If not employed by them, you're next best bet is to work as a civilian contractor for any of the military installations, working for any of the universities, and then trying for state, county, or city jobs. The private sector, minus Intel, is extremely limited. There are other factors, but that starts pushing the envelope that though truthful, are hot topics which cause descriptors to fly. Even though I held a city job, it was made clear I wasn't welcome. I'll leave reading between the lines at that.
That said, if you want to work retail at $8-10/hr one can go for broke, tons of options there. I worked with a guy at PetSmart with a Master's Degree (granted in Library Science). He couldn't find anything better, was a Pet Products Manager, which I was previously at another store and I was started at $10/hr with my BS in Bio. Pretty certain he wasn't making much more as the next step from Pet Products Manager was Pet Care Manager and that started at $15 IIRC. I was laterally transferred to Pet Care, to learn and grow the department while we waited for corporate to build 3 more stores which would allow me to promote to Pet Care Manager.
The other option is doing the oil & gas thing down in Artesia or Carlsbad. It pays well, but those towns aren't exactly what you know, but who you know. I learned that REAL quickly while I did a herp survey of Carlsbad Caverns National Park in 2004.
Lastly, you can work for uncle sugar as Border Patrol, assuming you get stationed anywhere in NM.
By moving out here, I opened the doors for myself and my wife. I work as a mass spectrometry lab tech for a local toxicology lab and my wife is a microbiologist/lab manager at Baylor Research Institute. Her lab works with TB.
Cost of living is much cheaper out here, though NM was shielded (delayed) from the recession some just due to how depressed employment is out there to begin with. The recession effects didn't really hit until around 2010 to 2013. Housing actually plummeted price wise, but unfortunately after we left. Even then, for what we did out there, versus doing similar out here, the pay here is better, cost of living is cheaper, and there are far more amenities. Our quality of life has seen a drastic increase for us by moving here. We’re thriving here, while in NM we essentially lived paycheck to paycheck.
</ Debbie downer reply >
That rattled off....we do love and miss NM. I miss being able to get into my truck and be road cruising for snakes within 10-15 minutes of driving any direction. I miss doing the same, but instead of road cruising, being able to go hiking or just simply get away from it all. I miss the vast public lands that I can do all that on. The majority of the state is federal lands, most of which fall under the public lands part as either forestry service or bureau of land management properties. What doesn't fall under that is then usually state lands or restricted military property. Eastern NM though is very much like TX, with most of the land being privately held and inaccessible - unless you know rancher bob.
As for NARBC, I have some targets for myself assuming South Mountain Reptiles is there. I haven't checked the NARBC site to see if he's listed or if they've even updated the vendor list. Show's only a month away now if I recall. There has been a couple guys there in the past with cb GTPs, but most there are farmed. I've been tempted, but I've been burned twice by 2 separate individuals on 2 male meraukes; out $3200 between the 2. I plan to grow my GTP colony again, but for now it's just a lonely male 2003 wamena from Freek Nuyt of the Netherlands.
