looking for a web design job in southern california

Lucid Lounge
21

milod: thanks for the info about the visa and such :smile: If you can direct me to any urls i’m most grateful :smile:
I know the hassle of only coming in for a visit, you already have to fill out 2 forms in the plane, and then 3 times the same questions too (for real) - so i cant wait to see which forms i have to fill out to be able to work and live there :tongue:

holy reality:
that’s what i meant, moving to the Netherlands for an american is not so hard i thought…

hmm i tried finding some info for you but instead found all kinds of info for dutch ppl wanting to emigrate to the US so i’m reading that now :happy:

22

pasQuale

Generally speaking the rain in California is not too bad. I mean you will get some rain no matter where you live in the US. But, from what I under stand from family and friends you get very little rain in California in comparison to the rest of the US.

Yes, I will do that tonight. ( I have to go out in a few minutes and don’t have time to do that right now) I know it is a irritating process for people to legally come here to live and work. But it is not impossible and it’s worth it.

23

pasQuale

Here is a link to the INS home page. It is a bit hard to navigate and much of the info is in legalize but, it is a start. As I find more info I will ad the links to this post.

uscis.gov/graphics/index.htm

24

thank you very much! :bow:

25

pasQuale, you should consider Grass Valley or Nevada City. I live in Auburn, but my band practices in GV, and we go to Nevada City alot too. the people around there are mostly very nice, even the few homeless people. theres a large community of “new-age” or progressive thinkers, and there are constantly gatherings for world music and the like in the area. the area is beautiful, very foresty with some awesome parks. the economy is pretty good right now and looks to be getting better, and even in downtown auburn, which is incredibly small, there is a web design place. like an actual building. im sure there are many more web-based ones too. but the internet is big in california, so i dont think it would be too hard to find a job. the air is clean, the water tastes good, and the weather is warm/hot in the summer and cool/cold in the winter, if thats what you’re looking for. its a 2 and a half hour drive to san francisco, two hour drive to lake tahoe, and 6 hour drive to the beach. The place isnt perfect, but i havent been to a place i liked as much. except for portland, oregon. if you would prefer to live in a city, that would be the one. its very clean and nice, especially compared to san francisco or the other hippy-ish citys. im sure theres an abundance of information on the net about portland, though. if you have any questions about Grass Valley/Nevada City, go ahead and PM me.

26

thank you very much wakeup :smile:

we do want to live close to the sea, so 6 hour drive is way too far for us. We need the sea/beach energy.

We also dont want to live in a city. Just outside in suburbs or something.
Or a quiet town relatively close to a city…

That’s just what we want to escape, the cold in the winter, so that is not it. How beautiful it might be, we want to live in a place where there is practically no winter.

i’ll look GV up on the map though :smile:

Is anyone here from the santabarbara/LA area? We are thinking of that direction, northwest from LA, close to the coast.

to all the ppl who say cali is so crowded… you haven’t been to holland. My country is maybe one quarter of the size of Cali (maybe even smaller) and we have 16 million inhabitants.

27

You might want to think further north in California. I mean Santa Barbara is nice and all but. you need major $$$ to live there ( I am talking millionaire range). You might want to look into Santa Cruse, Monterey or Bodega Bay. I’m not sure how great the beaches are there but, at least you will be on the ocean and the cost of living is more reasonable ( as far as California goes anyway ). The weather up north is not as bad as you might think. What they would laughingly call a winter is temps at about 40F and a little rain. The “winter” there is also very short.

You could also look into Florida. It is much more humid there than in California. However, they have plenty of beaches and yes palm trees too. Not to mention a lower cost of living. Also no winter.

There is also southern Texas I hear the beaches in Galveston are verry nice.

28

hmm then i would have to have a really good web design job then :grin:

i’m going to check online to see if i can find santa barbara house prices and see if i get blown off my shoes.

florida, yes we have thought about that too, but there you have the hurricanes and humidity. Also it is sunrise not sunset. We are used to having the sunset. I dont know it just doesnt feel right to not see the sun setting into the ocean.

montery i know, the other places you mention i’m going to look up :smile:

southern texas, texas has beaches? I didn’t know that, have to refresh my american state map image inside my head.

29

Every place has its advantages and disadvantages.

Yes florida has hurricanes which sometimes move right up the east coast and even hit us here some times. Also alligators ( could be good or bad depending on your point of view). I almost forgot about the huge roaches. But, it is a cheaper place to live and be near a beach. Also they have dolphins that sometimes come right into the shallows.

California may have great weather, nice beaches, and no snow. However, it also has pollution, major traffic problems, earthquakes, and a high cost of living.

Yes southern Texas does have beaches. Well at least Galveston does. Other than that I do not know much about Texas. Though as far as I know they do not have any palm trees.

New jersey, Connecticut, Newengland and long island also have beaches. They are doted with lots of quaint little towns with a sea side atmosphere. But of course 3 mo out of the year they get snow (winter) 6mo (fall and spring) of mild weather 60-70F and 3 mo of summer where it is very hot/ humid 90- over 100 at times. Though this summer has been fairly mild so far.

Hope I am helping and not confusing you more. Also I am not sure what your definition of a small town is. Santa Barbara is nice but. I would not call it small town.

I hope you get to move soon. I know you will love it no matter where you live. Once you are here you are not confined to one state. If after living in California you decide you don’t like it you can always move to another state. For that matter you can migrate depending on the seasons. Many people live up north during spring summer and fall then move to Florida during winter. So there are plenty of options for you.

30

I love northern San Jose (psst maybe I could visit sometime)

But San Jose is kind of a big city… not with skyscrapers like san francisco, it can be quite peaceful here. I don’t know about any new age stuff though. The weather here IS nice.

San Francisco is quite diverse… I was at chinatown today :smile: got me 6 boxes of “pop pops”

31

pasQuale

Hear are some links to look for houses and apartments:

www.realtor.com To look for houses

www.apartments.com For apartments

Both sites allow you to search using a map, city name or zip code. Very easy to navigate.

By the way I did find some rental apartment in the santa barbara area at a reasonable price ( for CA anyway) I also found a few mobile homes but, I have no idea what kind of shape they are in or where they are located.

32

thanks milod! :smile:

i did some real estate searching myself and found prices ranging from $50.000 to $20.000.000 :grin:

sure infection0, when we have moved over there we could organize some cali ld4all meetings :happy: And then a big one in Maui :biggrin:

33

I saw the same and the $50,000 ones were mobile homes. The other thing you need to find out is where they are. They may be no where near the beach. You also have to check what the lot fees are. The way mobile home parks work in the US is you own the trailer ( house) but, you don’t own the land it sits on. So you have to pay rent ( what they call lot fees) plus the mortgage on the mobile home its self. I don’t know what the lot fees in California are like but in NY they can be anywhere from $75.00 per mo to $400.00 a mo.

I am curious. What is the cost of living like over there in the Netherlands. How much would you need to live comfortably. You know pay rent on an apartment, buy food, own a car etc.

No fair. Then all the lucid dreaming “getaways” will be in Hawaii.

34

lol :smile: hmm yes but hawaii rocks :grin:

maybe we could do a LD tour or something then :cool: Who knows? The dutch forum has their 3rd RL meeting today. But then again holland is a real small country.

thanks for the mobile home info, i didn’t know that. I wouldn’t want to live in a mobile home though. I need space and comfort.

hmm the cost of living here is quite expensive.

especially in amsterdam house prices are very expensive and you dont even own the land it is on in most cases (in other cities/provinces this is different, when you buy a home you also get some land with it)

here in amsterdam house prices are almost unpayable. You cannot even get a house for under 150.000 euro anymore. houseprices start at 200.000 or more euro for a small house with a small garden and neighbors on all sides. And that is the suburbs.

taxes are very high here. 19.8 % sales tax and very high income tax. if your income is above a certain amount you pay 40% tax.
which can lead to situations where you get a pay raise but actually you earn less because you have to pay more tax because you have crossed the border.

gas is $5.50 a gallon or more. (goes in liters here, so it sounds less - 1 gallon is about 3 liters)

when you have a car you have to pay taxes over it, the bigger the car the more taxes. a normal sized car (small to americans) is about $50 a month. if you have a big car it can go up to $300 a month just on taxes. The tax is based on the weight of the car - the heavier the car the more tax you pay - and it doesnt matter if you drive it once a week to do shopping or every day across the country.

also everything is small. if you order food, for example mc donalds, your small size is our medium, and your medium is our large or extra large. For the same price or more expensive than in the US. In the US i found that food is cheaper and you get a bigger portion. Also no free refills here.

so in my opinion US is much cheaper than Holland, and even though cali may be one of the most expensive states to live in, i think for us it would actually not so much more expensive than what we are used to. - from what i hear now i havent been scared yet :wink:

35

That would be cool. Of course I could also stop complaining about how there are no lucid dreaming seminars on the east coast and start one.

We have the same thing here they are called condos or townhouses. Though with some townhouses you do own a little land.

WOW over here you do have to pay taxes on a car but, only once when you buy it. You are required to insure the car but, in most places you can get simple liability insurance for as little as $30.00 per month. You could buy a decent used car here for as little as $3,000.00. The cheapest you can get a new car for is about $9,000.00.

I hope you don’t get scared off. It would be great to have you here.

Besides there is more to living than just money. We have lots of freedoms over here ( at least for the moment). You have the right to say what you think, freedom of religion, right to assemble and on and on (too much to list). You also have privacy. The police can’t just walk into your home and you can’t be stopped and searched in the street fo no reason.

36

yes, that we have here as well. But even though we have that here i still feel more freedom in US than in Holland. It seems in Holland everybody looks over your shoulder and checks to see if you are not doing something out of the ordinary.
The dutch motto is ‘doe maar gewoon, dan doe je al gek genoeg’ - “act normal, then you are crazy enough”

in other words, dont do anything out of the ordinary or you are looked at disdainfully. I cannot stand that anymore.

well about the cars, we also have to have insurance and that also is expensive here… AND when you buy the car you also have to pay tax as well.

As soon as i find an US employer who will hire me i can get out of here, i need a job in the US to get an immigration visa.

So anybody here who knows ppl in in the LA area who need a good webdesigner and can pay me $$$$$ so i can live in Santa Barbara? :cool:

37

www.monster.com
www.headhunter.com

Two places I know of where you can post your resume on line.

That does not sound like much fun at all. Which is kind of strange coming form a country that most people her consider to be very progressive socially.

If you go to amazon.com look for a book called “immigration made easy” by nolo press. Nolo press produces some of the best legal self help books I have ever read. Some are even better than collage level law books yet, written in plain English and easy to understand.

38

It’s like I find a new feature of search engines every day.

Yahoo- New age communities by cities.
https://search.yahoo.com/search/dir?p=new+age&y=m&e=191535&f=0%3A2766678%3A2718086%3A159860%3A188978%3A191480%3A191535&r=RegionalU.S.+StatesCalifornia&h=C
SF is right at the ocean, but it’s colder there (being right at the ocean and all) and plus it’s a bustling big city with huge amounts of pollution. The traffic is horrible, just HORRIBLE. Plus if you’re a pedestrian it’s a friggin nightmare. Ever walked around those hilly streets? shudder
Didn’t find any new age communities in San Jose or Santa Barbara…

Oh no, smack myself for not looking enough…
https://www.sbcoast.com/npsite/holistic_cnp.html
That’s Santa Barbara. There’s a lot more I haven’t found- just search this:

“Santa Barbara” will designate the community you want to search and the quotes around “new age” will make sure it finds “new age” instead of “this new governor is a very low age” or something.

The Yahoo travel guide to SB states that at least its downtown area is clogged with heavy traffic. Are you sure this is a quiet town (sorry can’t research any more…)

https://jobsearch.monster.com/jobsearch.asp?q=web+design&cn=&lid=357&fn=&sort=rv&vw=b&cy=US&re=14&jsgate=1&brd=1%2C1862%2C1863
Ok. My last attempt to help in this post. I searched monster.com for job openings in Santa Barbara. Here’s what I want you to look at specifically:
https://jobsearch.monster.com/getjob.asp?JobID=23426532&AVSDM=2004-08-04+13%3A23%3A58&Logo=1&col=dltci&cy=US&brd=1%2C1862%2C1863&lid=357&fn=&q=web+design
Good luck Q.

EDIT: Whoa, so sorry about that screen stretch… but I don’t know how to get rid of it!! Well that’s some modding work there… sorry.

39

:cool_laugh: thanks milod and infection0!

incidentally i was just on monster.com looking for jobs and clicked back to the forum, only to see monster mentioned again, as well as the job i had saved because it looked interesting :happy: How is that for synchronicity? :cool:

i’m working now on my resume :smile:

can you tell me about the US school system? because i have a hard time translating my degrees into the US equivalent.

I have 6 years of VWO (that is after primary school), would that be highschool?
then 4 years of art school with a degree,
and then a masters degree.

the last one is easy to translate :wink: but what to you call VWO in usa? would that be like college, or highschool?

any help appreciated :smile:

40

I am not sure what you mean by primary school.

The way it works here is grades 1-12 takes you through high school.

Then you have college:

2 years of collage is an associates degree AA some times called an AAS
4 years is a bachelors degree BA or BS
6-7 years is a masters degree MA, or MS
8-10 doctorate degrees PhD