Hey I think that idear is catching on as the City Slickers move to Green Acres... there are 10,000 unsold Apts in NYC as the exodus is in full swing to the Hamptons green acres...

Gone now are Neiman, Barneys, Brooks Brothers all Bked...

that Lil Chief does a gud job on Salmon, and cheese as it is a low watt unit..with a low temp as it's high temp. It would be better if it had a two stage heating element. On a cold day it is just about worthless..the aluminum body is so thin it hardly retains heat.

With Sausage it puts the smoke flavor on but has to be finished in the oven to bring it up to finishing temp. I bought it on a lark at the Thrift to play with...cheap thrills...for me in low budget land...I used to smoke cigars but now suck on Polo Mints...

The problem I have run into is that all my other units, and one that I have seen all are difficult to maintain a low temp required to smoke fish, cheese and sausage. They tend to run too hot. You need about a constant 175* temp...to get to 155* for sausage.

I always find that people who say they hate California - and there are plenty- probably have issues.There is nothing you can't do or have done in the state of California.
It's an absolute money making machine that has and will continue to attract the most creative people from all over the world. http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1601827804.JPG
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1601827804.JPG
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1601827804.JPG
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1601827804.JPG

The season's are different;
Wind, rain, fire & smog.

"What's your dream" Pretty Woman, Julia Roberts
From obscurity to riches SoCal style is a classic example.:rolleyes:

The East has Woody Allen :o

Well we know why you are not there.

Here are a few more reasons CA is great.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1601834043.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1601834059.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1601834073.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1601834086.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1601834102.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1601834128.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1601834140.jpg

What drove CA population growth during and after WW2 was Aerospace and Defense work. Argriculture remains big but does not need a lot of people, except to pick the crop. In the 30's it was the Okies and after the war the Mojados.

Hi tech up in the Bay area, Sunnvale ..started because of DOD and it's proximity to Stanford. Guns Bombs and bullets...ask me how I know..

S CA in particular was DOD heaven with all those Cold War contracts...all HIGH PAYING JOBS which attracted people from all over. And because of all the money made RE expensive.. You had Aerojet Gen, Hughes, McDonald, Douglas, Lockheed, TRW, Republic as some of the major playas... After 1990 and the end of the CW..all of that went away...and with it the end of Conservatives in power. As the place started to become increasingly over run with the peoples of colour the politics increasingly became Liberal...

Where did Ronnie call home again??? hmmm....what did Ronnie do as his first order of business as Prez....rebuild the military you say...and wasn't Cali his home? Lots of money was funneled into Cali because of defense spending... Now ya got Social Welfare checks coming from the Fed. So the more poor minorities who are now the majority vote Liberal to keep the money coming. Meanwhile all the big corps have gone elsewhere because of taxes and regs..

Where did Nixon call home... Whittier, Ca you say. He kept the money flowin to CA with DOD work...and with it CA in his pocket..

I was acquainted with the Millhouse Boyz...real charmers they are or were..

The beginning of Silicon Valley was HP..started in a Palo Alto Garage in 1938 by 2 Stanford grads...making electronic testing equipment...their first customer was Disney..for work on the movie Fantasia..

then during WW2..

they worked on counter-radar technology and artillery shell proximity fuzes during World War II, which allowed Packard (but not Hewlett) to be exempt from the draft.[12] Hewlett served as an officer in the Army Signal Corps after being called to active duty. In 1942, they built their first building at 395 Page Mill Road and were awarded the Army-Navy "E" Award in 1943. HP's line of products during the war included the audio oscillator, a wave analyzer, distortion analyzers, an audio-signal generator, and the Model 400A vacuum-tube voltmeter, and employed 200 people. WIKI.

At the end of 1968, co-founder Packard handed over the duties of CEO to Hewlett to become United States Deputy Secretary of Defense in the incoming Nixon administration.

The WOZ of Apple Fame worked for HP...hee haw..

I lost (on paper) 68% on my LV home (that I bought in 2006) in the crash. I just kept making the payments. My word is good, and I said I would. Maybe there are other folks like me.

Your house should be worth quite a bit more than you owe as you should have been making payments for almost 20 years (assuming you did not pay cash). You bought at a better time than I did...and things have improved a lot since 2012.

LOL. The first time I flew out to LA, it was for a 4hr meeting that appeared to be about 20 minutes away (from the map). I gave myself an hour to drive it so I could get there early. I was still stuck in traffic on the 405 when the meeting ended...so I just turned around and came home.

If you work smart and hard, you can become relatively wealthy anywhere. I don't think anyone hates CAlifornia. Just the opposite (although the residents do seem to want to tell the rest of us what to do...and generally considers anyone that does not share their viewpoint inferior). I love the scenery and the beaches in CA...but the lifestyle for most folks is just not Baywatch, American Graffiti, or the Brady Bunch. The cities are crowded, dirty, and everything costs much, much more. Crime is high and so are taxes. The long shutdown will hurt state and local revenues immensely.

If you are wealthy, it is likely the best of times and the best of places...where everything you could ever want is available and at arm's reach. The weather is good, etc. But the typical person probably has a grueling commute to a job in a cubicle and gets home late, too tired to frolic on the beach or see a Redwood on the weekend. The only hope he has is that his home goes up in value enough that he can cash in some day. There is an awful lot you cannot do in California without time/money.

From the jump SF was a socially tolerant town..it was the gate way to the Gold mines in the Sierra's as such people from all over the world went through SF..

Cali helped finance the American Civil War with the Gold it mined...

In the 1870's mining started to decline, as a law was passed to protect Agricultural land from the debris from the Hydraulicing of Cal mountains for Gold. Argraculture, RR and finance..were big.

All you guys complaining about the 405 give me a real chuckle.
It was my commute route for 27 YEARS during my working life. North OC to LAX area.

This house is still quite a bit away from it's value in 2004. Nearby new homes of this size are roughly the same as that value if not a bit more..But yeah I am ahead of the game..at least for now..

Counting homes as Piggy Banks started in Cali in the mid to late 70's..with the Carter era inflation. In 1978 my Dad's house was valued at 48K almost overnight it went to 150K...Porsches were 6500 then to 15K... It was a delayed reaction to Nixon taking the USA off the Gold Standard..and substituting a FIAT currency..backed by nothing.

People should not count on homes being Investment vehicles aka Piggy Banks...they are an Overhead expense being a place to sleep at night. That was the way it was.

Homes because of the declining value of the MONEY..USD are reflecting the value of that money..which over the years has been a declining asset...wonder why the Stock Market is up..cause you money is worth the value of used toilette paper...

Look at this way..the economy is DEAD DEAD DEAD and is on FED and Treasury Life Support... 50 % of GDP is accounted for by govt spending...WOWSER!!! Meanwhile as a reflection of ALL THAT MONEY BEING PRINTED THE REAL VALUE OF THE MONEY HAS PLUMETTED and it's REAL VALUE is reflected by Equities and to some extent RE. Which has been up up and up and away...

The shyte will hit the fan when Corp cash flow starts to fall as they can't sell anything cause so many are unemployed and have no money to buy buy buy.. that is why so many retailers are now in BK and commercial RE is tottering on the brink because of it...no sales.

So far Disney furloughed 43K employees and is now laying off a further 28K...cash flow is way down..meanwhile they are leveraged to the hilt..on cheap money which they bought back shares of their own stock. if cash flow slows enough they might not be able to service the leverage...then it is BK or spin off of assets time for Disney.

Royal Dutch Shell is layig off I thnk about 7800...

California's a Garden of Eden
A paradise to live in or to see...

it's called long-arm Jd. - IIRC all the states have it

(and each state has to 'respect the rights' of every other state)

I cannot even imagine.

That was then and this is now...Back in the early 70's the Ventura Freeway still moved along pretty good at rush hour..say around 45 mph if memory serves.....since the mid 80's it has been a parking lot at Rush hour..

Back in the early 80's my Dad used to commute from Glendora in the San Gabriel Valley all the way to TRW in Redondo Beach everyday..even then that is a fking hike...you could not do that today.

I agree with a lot of this post (particularly the 2nd paragraph). Most people that I know wouldn't. But then again, that's probably why they'd never contemplate leaving this place.

We moved into our house in 1985 and my commute was 405 for those 27 yrs starting then. So don't talk to me about 'parking lots' Tabs. I recognize a parking lot when I see it.

I worked with guys that were commuting from Lancaster to RB every day. Glendora would be a cake walk to them.

I grew up in Laurel Canyon. As a kid, driving to the beach in Santa Monica took about half-an-hour. About 15 years ago, my sister was living at home and working in Santa Monica--16th Street, IIRC. It would take her 45 minutes to get there in the morning, and 1:15 to 1:45 to get home.

Selfishly, I actually like it when gas costs $5/gallon. For once, traffic drops.

Most of the time I've spent in CA has been on a motorcycle. Much of it was business trips, but the traffic was bearable on a bike with the carpool lanes, lane splitting and free parking in most garages. The few times I had Mrs. Lee with and thus was in a car, we just assumed horrendous traffic at all times and weren't disappointed. But then we didn't really have to be anywhere by a certain time.

So, what happens on a day where it doesn't move for hours? Does you employer just accept it...or do you start your trip hours early to ensure you are on time...and sit in the parking lot and wait once you get there?

What do ya mean wait??? You are lucky to be on time..

In the 90's I had to plan to leave home around 9:30 to 10 to go Downtown LA...and be out of there by 2 to 2:15 at the latest or get stuck in the bumper to bumper crawl home.

Then it was the same coming out of Laguna Nigel in OC to Rancho Cucamonga..When I drove the RR down there and got in stuck heavy traffic it was no fuss no muss, smoked my cigar, and turned on the tunes ...I always felt rested just like I had taken a nap in a big leather easy chair..any other car and I would feel beaten up.. So I highly recommend getting a RR if you can afford the coinage.

its must have something to do with the orange trees and warm winters. aint it ?

I'd watch for storm clouds on the horizon. When the above wealth tax runs off too many people (see above), the next move is to lower the threshold of what is considered "wealthy". IMO invariably, middle class will get his with an exit penalty as well.

∆∆∆ The govt is reactionary. They won't be smart enough to figure that out for a good 10 years. Probably 15. I'll be gone by then.

I used to get up at an ungodly hour so it would only take 45 minutes to get to work IF there weren't any accidents. No need to sit in the parking lot waiting to go to work as I could go in and play on a computer for an hour waiting for the 6AM starting time.
I prided myself on never being late for work due to traffic. Getting home in a timely manner was a totally different thing though. Once took me almost 6 hrs to get home when it was raining heavily and the freeway flooded and was shut down. Not a lot of streets to choose from going south other than the freeway.

I don't miss commuting at all now.

I recall one time back in 2006 - I was working in Glendale at the time and commuting from Long Beach. Normally not too bad IF I was out the door driving by 0500 and leaving the office by 1500. Even a five minute delay would jump a reasonably ok 45 minute drive to an hour, maybe hour and a half... and it would build from there. Anyway it was the first rain of the fall (the event body shops in LA pray for). I looked at the traffic map at about 1445 and it was blood red on all freeways with accidents everywhere (like I said, the day all the body shops pray for...) I worked quite late that evening and, seeing no improvement, went out for dinner and drinks with a couple of people from the office. I checked the map again (it was about 2100 or so by this point) and seeing no improvement, just got a hotel. It was a good call and money well spent. I heard later from a coworker that it was more than four hours going down to where he was in Carson (not too terribly far from Long Beach...)

I had a nice night at the bar flirting with a few gals in town for a conference and a good nights sleep. :)

You know there are times of the year when I really miss N.E. but when the snow flies and the track season is half of what it is here I'm glad I moved out. I don't regret the move to NV ( or as I call it the New Hampshire of the west).

I grew up in the Midwest, and moved to SoCal in 2011 due to work. Lived there for 5 years. I was a bit divided on the move, but tried my best to be excited about it. Like lots of people not from California, there was a bit of a romantic idea of what it would be like.

The traffic wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be....but was still pretty bad. Prior to LA, I lived in Chicago for a while, so I was used to crap traffic. If anything, I learned to be quite Zen when dealing with 405 rush-hour traffic. I lived in both the San Fernando Valley, and also the high desert. I commuted to the desert for work, daily.

In some ways, I feel like California is Disneyland for adults. It has everything you could want....awesome terrain, nice weather, lots of things to do, and some very memorable car culture. The bad side of that is....when I lived there, I never met a group of people with more of a provincial outlook on life. I can't tell you the amount of native-Californians I met, who had never left California. Although that's unfortunate, it's understandable given that California is so large and offers so much. The condescension I encountered when people learned I was from the Midwest was laughable, especially since they were quick to judge...but had never lived anywhere else, themselves.

"Oh you're from Indiana....I always wondered what the east coast was like!"

"Oh you're from Indiana...which state is that in?" (Legitimately heard this several times over my time there)

...and then the seemingly sad response when they learned I was from Indiana, like I was deprived my entire life of experiencing the greatness of California. Ha!

I did have lots of good memories there, though. ...Like when the Ferrari club was able to shut down the 101 for 10 miles, so that we could drive as fast as we wanted (helpful that the Club President was an LAPD Helicopter pilot) for a charity event. We had a garden party at an old mansion in Los Feliz. Private tour of the Norton-Simon, etc.

I saw lots of cool shows and artists at the Baked Potato in Studio City. The food was really good, and varied. If I wanted to go to the beach, I'd head over there and pitch a tent on the beach for the night. ...All things I'd never be able to do back in Indiana.

Working in aviation, I was exposed to some of the coolest aerospace stuff in the world. ...but at the end of the day, home for me was Indiana, and I really missed seasons and deciduous trees. I knew LA was not a long term proposition for me, so I guess that made it easier to leave.

Every once in a while, I find myself looking back at the great times I had in California, with rose-colored glasses. I think about driving in the Angeles Forest with either the Ferrari or the 911. Those are things I miss. I just have to think about some of the BS rules and laws that exist there and I kind of chuckle to myself. Living in LA was an experience...both positive and negative, but I have no regrets about moving back home.

Life is just EASIER here. I feel like everybody was on survival mode in LA. For example, going to a movie was an ordeal... bad traffic driving there, trying to figure our parking, etc. High cost of tickets.

I can drive anywhere in my city in 20 minutes. I live 10 minutes from downtown and 5 minutes from cultural attractions, but I have the serenity of living on 2 acres of woods in the middle of the city. There's no WAY I could ever afford this type of property back in LA. Everything is cheaper here. Taxes are lower. It's cleaner. And....if I want to go visit it again...it's only a plane ride away.

Interesting comments, Mike. But I have to say, if tou think native Californians are provincial, you haven't met New Englanders. I have met Cape Codders who have never left Cape Cod!

But you touched on something else in your post--how even going to the movies can be a mini-struggle. I lived in Portland, OR for a year. I had never understood what people meant when they described a place as "livable.". WTF does that mean? But after a few months in PDX, I got it. Everything was within a 20 minute drive. I could always find parking. I would go to places and do things because it didn't feel like a chore to get to them. Even rush hour was tolerable because it only lasted for 2 hours an afternoon/evening. In West LA, rush hour runs for about 10-12 hours per weekday, and for several hours during Saturday and Sunday as well.

Most of what's being said here about CA primarily applies to the major population centers...LA, San Diego and SF Bay Area. And a lot of it is true as well...these areas have become vastly overcrowded and are experiencing the all the issues that come with explosive population growth.

But, CA is a really BIG state, and there are still many areas that are not suffering from all the problems described in this thread. It's true that they all might not be a stone's throw from the beach, or have access to all the amenities you'd find in LA or SF, but they're out there nonetheless.

I live in a beach town on Monterey Bay about 70mi south of San Francisco. RE is expensive for sure, and the politics definitely lean to the left, but it's nothing like what's being described in many of the other posts here. The air is clean, the year-'round weather is superb, the traffic's manageable, and there are abundant six-figure employment opportunities available an hour away in Silicon Valley. There are mountains, rivers, forests, lakes and deserts all within a half-day's drive. And the ocean, and all it offers, is only a short bike ride away. Surfing, snow skiing, off-roading, camping, mountain biking, boating, fishing, hunting, and some of the best driving roads in the country are all within easy reach. Car culture is strong, with the Laguna Seca race track and the yearly Pebble Beach gathering less than an hour away.

The overall quality of life seems to be on the decline in many places, not only here in CA. I tend to stay focused on the positive, try to ignore much of the negative, and will remain here on the west coast for the foreseeable future.

Those were Hookers..in town working a Convention.

What Trade School did you drop out of?

Indiana? isn't that somewhere in the Middle East?

And all are fine graduates of the CA Ed system..

When kids enter Kindergarten in CA they might show some potential, but when they graduate they leave dumb as rocks.. and saying that is an insult to rocks...

CA has had some great things going for it..some might have called it paradise on earth. But then paradise was discovered and is now an ant hill of people climbing over each other and then you have the dishonest, unethical and morally objectionable take over and run the state with what amounts to a mental maladjustment. If only you could treat this mental maladjustment like a STD where one good shot of reality could cure it.

No, that's Phoenix. :p

rjp

Best fishing in the country.

What other state has 11 for a girl ranking???

An 11, is a 10 with a whole lot of money.

They are in Cali in large numbers, correct lure, prenup & timing is the key.

In other parts of the country...men make their own money.

Yes, a great reason to live there. :rolleyes: