After you get to know me a little, I probably seem like a real loud-mouthed, chatty bastard who can never shut up. I'll interrupt you, try to talk over you, and sometimes just sit in a corner and mumble for the sheer pleasure of listening to myself talk.

However, at the very beginning, I'm totally silent. If I'm at a party with a bunch of people I've never met, then I'll often spend the first thirty minutes in the corner, watching people.

When I start a new job, I have very little to say. I'm so quiet that people probably begin to wonder if hiring me was a good idea. The constant silence probably makes me look like I have some major mental problem that I'm able to hide, but only for short bursts (the duration of an interview, for example).

If you and I go out do drink with six other people I don't know, then you'll find that I'm going to spend most of the time listening (note that this isn't the case for nerd dinners, but those are an exception because I've typically already met some, if not all, of the people online - it just doesn't feel like I've met them).

Moving to New England hasn't been any different. You've probably noticed that I've been somewhat silent on the blog, and there's a reason for this: I'm currently the guy at the party who's sitting and watching everybody else. I'm trying to figure out who's in charge, who might be interesting to talk to, the ways in which people conduct themselves out here, and who would make a good candidate for teasing.

After nearly two weeks on this side of the country, I feel like I've finally figured a few things out, and I'm getting used to The Way of the east coast.

The east coast seems to be made up of several large cities strung together by many smaller cities, and even more towns. A town has been explained to me as something smaller than a city, larger than a village, and having no mayor.

One common theme seems to be that most small cities and towns here wind up being dependent on one company or another - there's hardly any diversity at all in the work.

For example, in New London, you're either in the customer service biz, you build submarines, or you work for Pfizer.

The scary thing is that it seems like losing either the submarine work or the Pfizer work would completely destroy one of these towns. It feels a lot like the beginning investor's portfolio: "I think I'll put all my money in this one company because it seems stable, and I like what they do." Of course, if that one company happens to falter, or just completely go under, you're screwed.

Throughout my life, I've watched movies in which people in small towns in the US lose their jobs as the main employer in the area either goes out of business or moves someplace else. Whether it's cars, textiles, clothing, or whatever, everybody in town, except for a select few, suddenly find themselves out of work. I had never seen this happen on the west coast. Oregon was highly dependent on tech work and took a major hit during the post .com era, but still managed to survive. There's enough diversity in the state to keep most people employed in spite of a great dependence on one industry.

Out here, though, it's different. I'm looking out of the window of Carl's office. Across the river, I see a few large buildings surrounded by cranes and covered in smokestacks. If one of these buildings up and went away, a large group of people in this town would be SOL.

Strange thing to see. I guess everybody else in the universe already knew about this, but, upon my first contact with it, I'm finding it utterly fascinating.

Just to make the dependence on a handful of companies for work even more frightening is the cost of living out here. Back in Portland, we'd often joke about the Three Dollar Latte, but out here, a latte really is three bucks. Sure, if you ordered your latte back in Portland with four shots of espresso and five added flavors (or whatever), then it could get pretty pricey, but you could still get a standard issue latte for about two bucks.

What's really odd is that this high cost of living is in the small towns as well. I haven't quite figured that out, although it might just be a supply and demand thing. If there are only two places in town where you can get lattes, then I guess those two places are going to dictate terms of the latte economy how they see fit.

Now here's the tough bit. It's expensive to live here, and the people are dependent on a few small companies to make their dough. The companies know that people around here are dependent on them, and they can get away with paying workers slightly less than they'd make elsewhere. For example, it looks like I'm going to be starting a new contract pretty soon, and the hourly rate is going to be about $15 less an hour than I could get in Portland at this very minute. Combine this with the high cost of lattes in town, and you have a problem (or, more specifically, I have a problem). It seems like the modus operandi around here is to take advantage of a lack of choice and strong-arm people into accepting a decreased standard of living (and, no: I don't want to hear your "This is what MS does" argument - you can shove it right up your ass).

I've never lived in a town as small as New London. The things you notice when you go from living in a city of 1,000,000+ to a city of around 25,000 are many.

First of all, in the economy sandwich of life where middle class is the meat between the lower and upper crusts, somebody seems to have laid on the salami pretty thin in this part of the world. I've seen a few "middle class" cars around, but for the most part you either drive a total POS (and that doesn't stand for "point of sale") or a high-end black Mercedes with tinted windows. I drive something in-between, but I'm not from around here, and I expect my extreme middle-classness to make me an instant local celebrity.

Another strange thing is the almost complete lack of young adults. I've kept my eyes peeled for people who are my age, but I haven't seen them. This means that they either aren't here or, much more likely, live underground in a vast network of tunnels and have adapted to the low light by growing eyeballs so large that they can see things in the radio spectrum. Until someone proves me wrong, I'm just going to be poking around town for the entrance to the tunnels. I'm sure they're around here somewhere.

Lastly, I'm getting to witness small town behaviors first-hand. People around here tend to be either extremely friendly, or extremely stand-offish. What's much better than either, though, are the people who are just downright ass creepy.

For example, here's a small town anecdote for you.

I took the train back from the first New England nerd dinner last night, and got into New London around 11:30 PM. The town was nearly empty. The walk back to Carl's office (where I'm staying until I find an apartment) is a 1/4 mile walk up the town's main street. For about 60% of the walk, I didn't see anybody else.

Then, when I was nearly to the office, I saw two hoodlums on the other side of the street, walking in my direction. For what I am about to tell you to have any impact at all, keep in mind that nothing in New London is open this late, and there's no good reason to be on either side of the street unless you happen to be staying at Carl's office, in which case you have a definite destination.

So, as I was saying, there were a couple of hoodlums walking in my direction, but they were on the other side of the street. In an extraordinarily deft move of calculated creepiness, they decided, upon spotting me, to cross the street and walk on my side.

There they were, then, walking towards me. There was nothing for them to do in the city, and there was nothing for them to do on my side of the street (just trust me here). They were obviously trying to freak me out, and it worked pretty well.

Fortunately, I got to Carl's office before we met, and ducked inside, glad to know that I wasn't about to get the crap kicked out of me by two weirdos who were probably angry about losing their jobs after a local factory closed, thus preventing them from being able to purchase the three dollar lattes to which they had become addicted.

On the bright side, people over here seem to be infinitely saner about some things.

For example, I went to a "diner" with Carl and the .NET Rocks sound technician (Geoff) the other night. They told me that it was a must-have experience on the east coast, and they were right: I walked away extremely impressed.

What really got me was the degree to which our waitress considered herself to be a human being. She didn't take crap from people, and she didn't sugar-coat every last vocal exchange in the hopes of not pissing us off. Restaurant servers on the west coast tend to tread pretty lightly and go overboard in attempts at being nice. The result is an experience that has all the superficial qualities of being nice and sweet, but it's obviously an act - kind of like NutraSweet.

Here, though, it's different. During the course of our meal, we were talked down to as though we were idiots, the waitress smacked Geoff in the head with her order ticket book, and then tried to pull out some of Carl's chest hair.

You might think I'm kidding when I say this, but I thought it was awesome. On the west coast, she would have been fired, sued, and sent to death row. Over here, people can take it in stride. I honestly don't even know how to begin expressing my appreciation for this mentality, but I can at least say that it's overwhelmingly refreshing to find people who don't constantly live with the "I'm the center of the universe" Princess and the Pea mentality.

So, so, so nice.

I have quite a bit more to say, but this post is already long enough. If you stuck through it, then thanks. I realize that most people don't give a crap about these sorts of observations, but I feel compelled to write about them anyway.

Now I have to get back to the party. This is the stage in which I begin, ever so slowly, to mingle with the other guests...