50 for 50: 2002

YEAR: 2002

AGE: Turned 32 on Nov. 6

LOCATION: Cottonwood Heights, Pinnacle Highland Apartments

CUBS' RECORD: 67-95

SONGS I LIKED: "Without Me" by Eminem; "Harder to Breathe" by Maroon 5; "Hands Clean" by Alanis Morissette; "A Thousand Miles" by Vanessa Carlton

MOVIES I SAW: "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers"; "Minority Report"

TV SHOWS I WATCHED: "The Amazing Race"; "Project Greenlight"

CONCERT I SAW: Chicago

VIDEO GAME I PLAYED: High Heat

We moved to Salt Lake City basically because of the Olympics. I was shooting for a slightly bigger newspaper while I was applying for jobs from Madison, and frankly, we held so many misconceptions about Utah and the culture that it wasn't exactly topping the list of destinations to move our lives to.

However, the Winter Olympics would be held in Utah in 2002, and for a sports journalist trying to add more experience to his resume -- and to simply live in an Olympic city during actual Olympic -- the opportunity was too good to pass up. After all, we could move and potentially settle someplace else after the Olympics were over.

I wrote about the Olympic experience around the 10th anniversary of the Games, and I touched a little upon what happened afterward. Gradually, eventually, and not really grandiosely, Lori and I decided that we liked Utah enough to stay.

I say "not really grandiosely" because there were some minor inklings to go over the next couple years. I did send a few resumes out (newspapers weren't quite flailing yet, but they did pull back a little after 9/11), and when we visited the Midwest, we felt that familiar pull to move back home. But we didn't attack a move the way we did when we were in Madison. Perhaps because we just moved two years earlier, we didn't want to pack up again so quickly. Ultimately, we really liked Salt Lake City -- despite frustrating politics and liquor laws -- and saw opportunities here as well as the mountains.

Not every opportunity materialized, but we have no regrets that we stayed. The only smidge of second-guessing was that all our friends in the Midwest had kids when we did, and it would have been nice having them all grow up together -- but even that's proved difficult for the good friends who managed to only hang out a few times a year despite living within an hour's drive of each other (plus, our kids are all old enough that we passed that phase). 

Furthermore, the newspaper industry continues its death spiral, and we could have moved somewhere only for me to be laid off in a few years. I didn't get laid off here, but if I did, at least I'd have had the mountains and the family and everything we built here over the years. That might not have been as easy if we ended up in Dallas or Phoenix or the Bay Area.

The first hints we might stay were sown in 2000. We had heard about a Candy Cane Lane somewhere in the Sugar House neighborhood and, on a December night off, drove around looking for it but couldn't find it. We eventually did, but what we saw in the meantime were blocks and neighborhoods that reminded us of the city residential neighborhoods we grew up in.

After the Olympics, we weren't immediately ready to buy a home -- and we weren't quite cemented on staying in Utah -- but we would look at open houses in the city for fun. Then, in June 2002, we went to a margarita party one of Lori's friends was throwing on the periphery of Sugar House. We parked drove down the block to find a place to park, and Lori commented, "This is a nice block; wouldn't it be nice to live here."

Fourteen months later, we bought a house on that block. It was purely coincidental -- the house was way on the other end of the block, and I don't think we realized it was the same block as Lori's friend until after we toured the house the second time -- but 17 years later, we're still here, with a view of the mountains and a home and adopted city full of memories.