I, too, am ex-Navy (9 years, YN1(SS)). Got out, went to college (studying English) in the early 90's, and found that HTML was almost exactly like WordStar's markup, so found myself "designing" web pages in 1994. Over time, I "retooled" myself into a programmer and DBA. The economy tanked, I almost got laid off once and then did get laid off a year and a half later. Somewhere In there, I decided that I needed a Plan B, so I went back to school and got an M.Ed. with teacher certification. I am now teaching high school computer science and love it. First off, "stress" for teachers is nothing compared to "IT stress", ifyaknowwhatimean. The job isn't exactly difficult, especially when you're doing what you love. It sounds hokey, but I find it really rewarding to be teaching what I see as the next generation of home-grown US IT workers -- anything I can do to keep US tech jobs from being offshored like my job was. You're not going to turn 100% of your students into programmers/IT people, but even if you help one kid decide that that's what they want to do, it's a great feeling. Moreover, there just aren't enough CompSci teachers out there that actually have real-world experience; many HS CS teachers are just math or business teachers who are 1/2 step ahead of the kids and everything they know comes straight from the textbook.

I'd move to either Canada or Belgium; moving to Belgium would be pretty difficult unless we (wife & 2 kids) decided to just sell it all and move with nothing but suitcases and memories.

I would move to either country because the weather & countryside isn't too different from what we have here in PA, because the people in both countries are very nice and are accepting of well-behaved foreigners, and because people generally seem to have their priorities more in line with enjoying life.

The thing that gets me about the US is the level of paranoia that our society has reached that just doesn't seem to exist in Canada (at least in the places where I have been, mainly around Montreal).

My wife is a clinical pharmacist, and I am a developer/dba who is also a certified English teacher, so I think we would both have pretty good options as far as jobs go.

The thing is, I really DON'T want to pull the plug on living in the US, but this is no longer the country that I was born in (mid 60's) and took an oath to protect (10 years in the Navy as a submariner). It just feels...different now. Sleazier, slimy, with an easily mollified public that hasn't been raised to ask questions of its leaders and demand cogent answers.