I haven't read this whole thread, sorry, it's so long, but I saw the word Livermore. I lived in Livermore and Dublin for about four years. My family lived in San Ramon for awhile. My mom worked in Pleasanton for many years. We call it the Bay Area, but truly, anything around Oakland is the Bay Area, as the Bay runs into it. Miss it all terribly. Especially San Diego, where I grew up.
I was replying to this:
Guess we all need to move out to the Bay Area, where the weather is always nearly perfect. Chances of getting hired at Berkeley are slim though, so I'm setting my sites on Colorado . . .
Lee mentioned Berkeley and then Colorado, so I assumed he was looking at DOE sites, so I tossed out Livermore Labs. Also, Lee, you can check out SLAC (Stanford Linear Accelerator) which I think is a DOE site - if that's in fact the line of work you're in. If you get out here we can go...wait for iiit....Booooouuuulllllderrrrinnnng!