Goodbye California, Good Riddance!

[Casual Observer]

It's official, we're moving back to Seattle area, this time Everett WA. Rental market seems soft so got a decent deal on a nice 3 bd apt with a great community center that will be nice once it's open for use again. Now that the job is virtual and over 40% of companies are saying virtual is ok forever, we're bugging out of this hellhole. Between the wildfires (yeah, washington has some but Jesus Christ I'm fucking surrounded by them here), horrible traffic everywhere, miserable people, ridiculous costs everywhere, earthquakes, drought, dust, some of the worst most nonsensical regulations I've ever seen - I'm never "goin back to cali".

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Has there been anything that you have truly enjoyed about California??

I have been a few times and I would not savage it - it's working for the people out there - but the last time I went I was in Hollywood specifically and it was GREAT. It was in November. There was no traffic (it rained every day - could have been why) and it just seemed that everyone was nicer and more calm.

[bryanb]

Good for you! You've talked about this for a long time so I have no doubt the move will work out for you. Even if you can't or end up not wanting to work remotely forever, I'm sure you'd be able to get another sales job in a tech hub like Seattle. That's perhaps one advantage of heading over there as opposed to sentimental favorite Rochester.

Is the wife happy about the move? Uh...you are taking her with you, right?!

[Casual Observer]

I enjoyed:
- Mendocino (see movie Dying Young for reference)
- Carmel by the sea (Clint Eastwoods's home town), Monterey
- Lake Tahoe area (specifically staying in Carson City NV for cheap and snowmobiling on the NV side)
- Wine Slushies at a Sacramento area winery
- Driving up and down Highway 1, ocean views
- no rain until I got sick of it after the first 6 months

What I enjoy more about Washington state:
- don't need air conditioning 100% of the time
- Hood canal shrimp ("spotties" in their language)
- Lake washington
- snoqualmie pass, snow only 1 hour away
- puget sound islands
- Port Townsend
- Pike Place Market (see Sleepless In Seattle for an example of this thing)
- Mt. Ranier, Mt. Baker
- kayaking on Puget Sound
- now they have an awesome new waterfront park downtown
- much bigger and nicer apartment for a fraction of my current costs
- almost never have to pay for heat either

Pinback probably will say he didn't mind it but he did leave. Visiting CA is not like living in CA. I visited the bay area lots of times when I was living elsewhere but working remotely, I did see the problems and never wanted to live here. Before the pandemic, it took me 2.5 hours to drive to work 40 miles away and 3.5 hours to get home, there are only 2 highways to accomplish this and they were literal parking lots. Did you know that 80% of the lamps and air filters on Amazon cannot be shipped to CA due to bullshit rules? I'm planning to start my own lead generation "cold calling" company and I can't hire 1099 contractors to do the work here in CA. My sister who is a certified (in NY) blood diagnostic technician couldn't get a job here due to an additional requirement about advanced Physics classes.

Living in CA is a daily grind of dealing with people who are absolutely miserable to live here. It's weird, I went to a Christmas party at my startup job and the Investors were the most miserable people in the room, the venture capitalists. I worked remotely for most of my career and every time I talked to someone in CA, they literally bragged about the sunshine outside. Now I realize that the sunshine is the only positive thing you can say about this and even that's a lie because SF doesn't actually get sunshine and the rest of the state is desert like Mad Max.

I got good experience and resume building here but the only positive thing about this pandemic for me is it gives me a chance to legit escape from having to live here. I'd move back to Rochester before I come back to CA.

[Casual Observer]

Good for you! You've talked about this for a long time so I have no doubt the move will work out for you. Even if you can't or end up not wanting to work remotely forever, I'm sure you'd be able to get another sales job in a tech hub like Seattle. That's perhaps one advantage of heading over there as opposed to sentimental favorite Rochester.

Is the wife happy about the move? Uh...you are taking her with you, right?!

Thanks for the well wishes BryanB! Good question, the wife actually made the final decision due to "loving" the pacific northwest and her brother is currently a transient in that area so she thinks maybe she can try to help. I would have been ok with Rochester area or even somewhere downstate like the Hudson Valley NY but she (as usual) was the deciding factor. Believe me, I would have preferred to be paying less than $1k/month like I would have in Rochester but frankly she has some family related issues that she wants to avoid back home.

[Tdarcos]

I have even better news for you. California's state income tax ranges from 7-13% depending on income. Washington State has no income tax. But the sales tax might be higher.

[pinback]

California has no defining characteristics. It's all different. Fresno and Santa Monica might as well be on two different planets.

[Casual Observer]

California has no defining characteristics.

Sure it does:

FIRE

[Tdarcos]

California has no defining characteristics. It's all different. Fresno and Santa Monica might as well be on two different planets.

Having lived in Oakland around 1969, Sacramento around 1970, and Long Beach from 1972-1987, I am fairly familiar with California politics, and let me tell you, the Northern California rivalries with Southern California were about as bitter as the rivalry between the North and thr South in the Civil war.

Water was one of the big issues. Southern California used a lot of water for residential and non-agricultural commercial use, while in Northern California, agriculture was the big user of water. California's farming was built on easy access to cheap water. So Northern agricutural users hated how Southern California "wasted" all that water on unimportant things like people drinking and bathing, while Southern users complained about the wasteful use of water by farming interests who had the legislature in their pocket.

The North thought the South was going to use up all of the state's water supply, while the South thought the North wanted to allow Los Angleles, Orange County and San Diego to die of thirst. There was some truth to all of this, but in different ways. Agricultural water users got big subsidies to reduce their cost, which was paid for by masking residential and commercial users pay more. They wouldn't raelly notice; if your water bill is $200 for three months, you might not know $50 of that went so a multi-million dollar farming corporation paid maybe $100,000 a quarter on one farm instead of $500,000.

California needed so much water they had to look everywhere for it. At one time there was talk of transporting an iceberg and parking it in Los Angeles' harbor. The major water supply for Southern California was a pipeline running al the way to Arizona, where, as a result of the Colorado River Water Compact and several U.S. Supreme Court decisions, California gets no more than 50% of the flow of the Colorado River each year, about 4 million acre-feet of water. A big chunk of that is diverted for Northern California ag usage, because their water supplies are inadequate.

But with California having more and more trouble getting adequate amounts of potable water, that iceberg idea is not sounding as preposterous as it used to.

[Casual Observer]

At one time there was talk of transporting an iceberg and parking it in Los Angeles' harbor.

Pretty sure that's gonna happen on it's own at some point.

[Billy Mays]

So it turns out Seattle is hiring an actual pimp to become the city's official "Street Czar". I think $150,000 is a reasonable price to pay to turn your town into Escape From New York:


https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-ne ... -protests/

[Casual Observer]

Well, the furniture still isn't here but the third of a cord of firewood got delivered. I've never had enough wood to speak of in terms of cords. A real man would've cut, chopped, split, and dried it instead of just ordering it on Craigslist though.

[Jizaboz]

Heh heh you got wood heheheh

[Tdarcos]

Heh heh you got wood heheheh

Yeah, I'm sure his significant other appreciates all rhe "morning wood" he has!

[AArdvark]

why is the wood wrapped in individual plastic sections? Every time I've wood delivery it's just dumped in a driveway in a pile

[Billy Mays]

Every time I've wood delivery it's just dumped in a driveway in a pile

Does everyone in your new town hate you?

[Casual Observer]

why is the wood wrapped in individual plastic sections? Every time I've wood delivery it's just dumped in a driveway in a pile

Very astute Vark! Apparently overnight the tarp blew off her regular wood pile and the rain soaked it throughput. So the nice wood lady driving a badass F250 diesel was nice enough to substitute her wrapped bundles that she usually sells for $5 each to campers and fire pitters. Don't bother with the math, i did it while carrying them, she would have made $165 had she sold them piecemeal. I paid $100 which is fair since i see full cords going for $250 to $300 around here.

[AArdvark]

Dude! the going rate is $80 a facecord in Upstate NY. Move back and get cheap wood

[Casual Observer]

And rent would be half too, no shit. Couldn't get the wife to agree though.

[uruzrune]

My first thought was, "More access to L&L Barbecue!" but it seems L&L is all over the place in southern California.