Hours of Daylight – 9:33

She got the offer via fedex on Monday, Jan. 24. Boise State University has invited her to become a colleague. Although i will not assume anything until she formally accepts the position all signs point to her taking the job.

Since my last post i’ve been to: A) Boise, Idaho and B) Portland, Maine. I’d never been to Boise, so i jumped at the chance. From my position as spectator, BSU, Boise State University, was completely on their game from the very beginning of the interview process. They held a phone interview several weeks before afterwhich they contacted her and invited her to come out for two days of in-person interviews. All travel and hotel arranged, a detailed schedule was provided.

I traveled out a day later to conserve vacation. Knowing only what i have read in the media about Idaho i set my expectations pretty low. However i am happy to say i was, at least on first visit, entirely wrong about Boise. It is a very nice small city that for all i can tell seems entirely livable. Yes they have restaurants and bars there (several are perfectly serviceable).

I met up with the realtor i’d been in touch with and we headed out into the hills. There was not a flake of snow to be seen in the Boise River Valley (called the Treasure Valley for some reason i’ve yet to learn), but as we climbed into the "foothills" we climbed into wonderful fluffy high-dessert snow. The snow proved a bit problematic as we tried to climb up a hill to see one of the houses i’d found online, but it all worked out fine and we got to four houses that afternoon.

Maine was Maine. We’d been to Portland many times before, so there were few surprises beyond the ludicrous cost of housing in the city proper. We stayed four days at the Portland Regency hotel (snazzy!) and ate out every meal (decadent!). I was invited to dinner with Annette and the "crew" from the University of Southern Maine and attended with gusto. It was a fine evening, but I agree with Annette’s observation that everything seemed fairly "low energy." Part of the problem was one dish took forever to prepare, so it turned into a fairly long evening.

So now she gets to make a decision. Take the BSU offer? Call Maine and see if telling them she has an offer-in-hand shakes anything loose? Decline BSU and see what Maine comes up with?

I’ll go on record here and say I would be perfectly happy with her taking the BSU offer. In many ways Maine seems a step backward. We have "history" with Maine. At least in Idaho we’re starting, essentially, from zero. If we don’t try that now, odds are we never will.