Our house was on Concannon Court – was built in 1990 and had a 13,000 sq ft lot, but a lot of it was hill. The new people who bought it from us terraced the back lot and put a swimming pool in.
I grew up in Long Island (Smithtown), but my folks were from Brooklyn – my dad from Sheepshead Bay and my mom from Coney Island Ave. My family followed me here to SD! But they moved up to Irvine. I have my brother-in-law in Madison, we are great friends.
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Hey Rustico! Sorry I have been so remiss at checking in at the forum. Bishops is very cliquey and she has friends – just doesn’t like the way that the groups judge and stick together. She gets crap for being friends with some 7th graders (she is in 8th grade), and while she has 2 great friends – she doesn’t like being in a school where there are so few kids. I think that the whole 8th grade is just 30 or 40 kids. There are kids there which are on scholarships, there are kids there that have access to private jets. My daughter is pretty down to earth and quite frankly I don’t want her in the So. Cal lifestyle anymore.
Some of the girls come from the Evans school – which is somewhat dangerously religious. I don’t like the family values they espouse.
I don’t think that the really rich kids snub anyone, but I could be wrong. The very wealthy kids are pretty nice – but it’s still a pretty bizarre situation there. I’m hoping a very large but really nice high school in the Midwest is a good move for her. She really wants to go to public school and I don’t want to let her go to Torrey Pines or the equivalent.
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And ibjames….
I don’t want to disagree with you because I am sure that the winters will be very tiresome and the bugs will drive me crazy… but…. I like weather (when I am outdoors which isn’t that often!). I have been in Wisconsin about 6 times for at least 1 or 2 weeks each time in the winter – the dead of winter and it was 0 degrees or less… Didn’t bother me. It was warm inside! I am an indoor person and the reason I got a 6000 sq ft house is that I am going to have a 10′ steam shower with body sprays and a sound system, a theater room, a huge basement with a pool table and bar, a very custom master bedroom with a walk out 4 season room with heated floors and sealed gas fireplaces (with remote control) and 6 bedrooms and a room just for my 2 pianos, my books and my couch I have had since I was a single dude in NYC!
As for culture – I think that the culture out here is missing a few bulbs. My wife and I have season tickets to the Old Globe and I really enjoy the theater scene, but outside of that where is the culture? Madison is a 2 hour drive from Chicago (a real city), and a couple of hour plane ride to NYC (where there is real culture). While Wisconsin might be lacking in culture, Madison is not. Its a very cool college town. It has a new state of the art performance center which is supposed to be one of the three best in the US (donated by the American Girl owner lady..) There is a theater scene very similar to San Diego (Spamalot is there now) and because of the University it has rabid sports fans, and lots of intellectual discourse.
As to the food scene what might be true for Wisconsin in general, doesn’t apply to Madison. When I moved from NYC to San Diego I was afraid that the food wouldn’t be up to my enjoyment level – I was wrong… The food is great here in SD (not at the high end, but I would rather go to San Francisco or NYC for those meals), and in Madison it is no different.
Had some of the best sushi of my life there last month (and I eat a LOT of sushi!), there is a Vietnamese restaurant which was the equivalent of any in NYC, a Ruth Chris steakhouse, French restaurants, as well as some amazing restaurants downtown. There is a hard to get into Italian restaurant which had better food then any I have found here in SD. The other cool thing is that I am out in the country but a 10 minute drive to the capital building. The good restaurants are at least as expensive as SD (maybe even a bit more) but they have to ship stuff there – especially fish.
Madison is 100% smoke free even in bars. This was another important criteria for me. The surrounding suburbs are just going there -and the governor of WI is trying to make the whole state smoke free!
I totally understand your feedback though (especially as it relates to outside the 25 mile radius of Madison proper)… But without trying to be a snob – seriously I’m not! I live in La Jolla and the only time I go north of Rancho Santa Fe is to go play poker at Ocean’s 11! And I don’t usually ever hang out east of the 5. I would probably kill myself if I lived in the country in Wisconsin. Same thing for Temecula or Vista. The reason I’m moving to Middleton is for the kids and it’s proximity to the downtown, the university, and all the services I like. For their schooling and for their having great, nice friends.
Type in “middleton, wi” into google, go to maps and you will see what I am talking about. It was rated #1 by Money Magazine for a reason – best place to raise kids. I plan on spending every time the kids are off from school in the Bahamas anyway!!!
