Leaving California
More details to follow. Finally got my prettier half to come along... Bittersweet, as I have so many memories here. I keep saying that being a Californian this long has been like knowing a gorgeous blue-eyed girl in high school, only to see her show up at your reunion as a crack whore. (I've actually experienced that....so I should know). Not a happy thing to see. Even this morning, in my walk to the donut shot to get my daughter a treat...I observed and experienced a couple things that were so symbolic of this place. Blew my mind....
SOURCE URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bliNQwjNH74
1992, just out of college. But it only took 3 months to realize the weather was the last redeeming quality, and the Fruits & Nuts were not coming from trees... Worse, the FLAKES they were electing to run the place.
Oh, and having to team up with 5 other people to buy a 3 bedroom house, and cycle through a couple of those before you had a down payment on your own property. It was all INSANE to me.
Glad I left. I have a friend or two that are still out there. They love the weather. Hate the driving, and keep their heads down, and their mouths shut.
I've mentioned this in the Gulch before. I had two job contracts in Oakland. One for the city itself for a month and a second one for another month at the Chevron refinery just north of the city. Although the jobs and coworkers were very good, I definitely did not like Oakland or San Francisco across the bridge. I have no desire to ever go back there for any reason. I have an old friend who lives in a town northeast of Oakland who came to have dinner with me one night after work. His statement and observation was he hasn't come to the communist sector of the state for some time and things appear worse than the last time he was there.
I'm also always shocked at how long it takes to go a short distance in traffic. I think it would get tiresome fast.
Of course these apartments won't be safe because they're not about to discriminate against the bums that are now everywhere in tents. They'll force the rest of us to subsidize them. And they'll keep petty theft unpunished so that even food becomes super expensive. (And I haven't even touched yet on the tax picture, which will only get worse because the state constitution makes all those unfunded civil service pensions an untouchable, guaranteed right.)
This is what awaits anyone who doesn't make it out of California in the next year or so.