hahahaha

It is near Paris, in a little town called Poissy. A park setting of about 10 acres in the middle of town, with a large fishing pond, vegetable garden and fruit trees. This used to be part of an Abbey. I spent my childhood there, and we inherited the house when my father passed away 11 years ago.Very nice place, but France is a bit like California in the fact that the socialists pretty much ruined it. I must thank them for the free education they gave me though. It served me well in the US ;).

It's on the corporate level also, like Nissan. I did some work for a TBTF firm that was closing all (just one left) facilities in CA because of the management described "over the top California employee costs"

Just heard AT&T is moving it's HQ from San Ramon to TX for the same reasons.

I think I'll stay for awhile though..... :D

Matt -

Sorry if my post rubbed you the wrong way. That said, you have no idea how it feels like being an immigrant. Have you lived in a foreign country? You get excited about people asking about your farm? Multiply that bad feeling by a factor of 100 and you may get close. Every day you do suffer this type of stereotying as an immigrant - multiple times - your wife and your kids do too. It hurts most with the kids IMHO - have them bullied at school for their faith, their lunch looking different, their parent's accent, their family traditions? It is much easier to live in a place where 50+ percent of the people are foreign born. Everyone's lunch suddenly is different, everyone has different beliefs, accents and traditions. Suddenly you may get invited to someone's house even if you don't want to join them for bible study.

I work in high tech and know many immigrants that have had fantastic offers to go to the Midwest, South etc. and declined. That includes myself. I lived in the South for several years. You could double my CA salary, I would not move my family there.

CA has a lot of issues, but brain drain and people moving away isn't one of them.:)

George

The Exodus has started - Really? I was told in started in the late '60's when Calif retirees started moving into my Washington waterfront town of Port Townsend? Been happening ever since........

I love Calif, but like to be in a small town. If I lived there, somewhere near the coast around SLO would be perfect....

Ok

http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/...rty-sep-13.jpg

http://media.nj.com/ledgerupdates_im...c90d_large.jpg

http://www.stanthonysf.org/blog/wp-c...ess_senior.jpg

Kurt, you're an idiot. Have you ever actually been anywhere in your life? Any big cities?

I could google random photos of food lines all day if I want. I've spent a fair amount of time in the Bay Area this year and it's wall-to-wall wealth and brains.

C'mon Denis, even in podunk KS I've seen reports about the homeless problem in SF. It's one of the most homeless friendly cities in America, and has one of the biggest problems with homeless (go figure). Here's a quick article from the SF Chronicle that states "they give the city its dubious distinction of having what many call the worst homeless problem in the country".

Shame of the city - SFGate

It's idiotic to pretend that any big city is 100% chock full of wealth and brains. Seriously?

George,

Sorry for the overreaction. Really the only point I was trying to convey was that everything between the coasts is not equal. I can't speak from the standpoint of an immigrant, but I know a diverse culture when I see one. We are fortunate (yes fortunate) to have a number of factors that make Wichita a very diverse city. Wichita State is a major engineering college and also features the National Institute for Aviation Research, a national center for aerospace study. That brings students and faculty from all over the world, many of whom then go to work for one of our multiple local aerospace companies. I graduated from WSU and was dramatically in the minority as a white male, compared both to my graduating class and faculty. The aerospace industry which dominates Wichita is similarly diverse, particularly on the engineering side. Add in a large USAF base and it is far from the white-bread community that many picture.

Matt, you just suffer from too thin a layer of skin. ;) :D

To the folks with the hard on to exit CA, buh-bye. I hope you enjoy you new digs. SmileWavy

I love CA (for visits) but there is no way I would want to live there...different strokes. I too was in high tech, and was at the opposite end of the spectrum...you couldn't have tripled my salary and enticed me to move to CA :D. My first job out of college was doing r&d for IBM (at RTP, NC), and there was certainly no shortage of "diversity" from all parts of the US (and abroad), nor in any of the other positions that I held over the years. The "south" and "midwest" are pretty broad generalizations imo...just like CA. There are great places to live all over the place...life is what you make of it imo :).

Uh, you dont get out of Pacific Heights much, do you?

I was grumpy yesterday. Hangover from two nasty days of flu. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.:cool:

Yes, that would be idiotic. And it's not what I said. Of course there is a "homeless problem", although it's not a problem for 99%+ of the people who live there.

I have a news flash for you guys: When you go to a big city, (or a big state), there is more of everything. Where would you want to live if you were homeless or a drifter in the first place...Cownutz Missouri or California? Where do you think would be warmer and have better panhandling? There are more people in L.A. county alone than in your state and the 5 states around it, most likely. So yeah, more food lines...:rolleyes:

The difference between myself and some of you is that I am from the midwest and I've been just about everywhere in this country plus many more. I do not think that everyone in Kansas is a farmer, though that would not be a bad assumption to make about someone from a rural part of the state. Not bad either as a guess or in terms of being demeaning. Farmers are very rich these days if they grow corn. Certain members of my extended family farm, we are not the least bit embarrassed about it.

The only time I see a food line in CA. is when I drive downtown to skid row or to the church in Hollywood where I sometimes volunteer. My good friend runs the charity and it feeds about 100-150 people a day, 5 days a week. Not all of them are homeless, though. Some are just flat broke for whatever reason.

Some of you need to turn off the Fox News and actually get out in the world. It's large and interesting and it beats googling stupid images of people down on their luck in CA., (supposedly). The larger cities in your part of the world have major underclasses and look like one continuous loop of COPS, if you only watch schitty television. :rolleyes:

The reality is that the wealth in the San Francisco area these days is staggering. And I'm not talking about the Larry Ellisons or Gordon Gettys, I'm talking about the sheer number of affluent and highly educated people. It would be very foreign to you.

Yes I do. Try SoMo some time, which 20 years ago was somewhere you would not even go, much less live. Go out in the city. Go to the area of Palo Alto and that part of the Bay area. Go across the GG bridge to Marin. It is a staggering volume of wealth. More wealth in 100 sq. miles than in 10k sq. miles in many parts of the midwest.

Whatever...I just returned from an expensive mini-ski vacation and I was thinking that I would not care if it cost double to live in CA. for everything, it would be worth it. Let me know when they put something like this in Kansas: :cool:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1357919223.jpg

IMO, if I were homeless, I'd move to Santa Monica, San Fran is just too cold, all year long.

CA has been very good to me for the last 34 years. But when I "retire", I'll look at moving somewhere else six months plus one day each year.

Speeder, Jim, Aigel: Shhhhhhhhh! Let the negative people live elsewhere.

So you haven't ever been anywhere far from the airport or Fisherman's Wharf in SF I guess. It is a dirty city, over run with homeless people. Lot of money there too, but there are more beggars and homeless in SF than in any other place I have ever been in this country. No Denis, you are not the only person that has seen a bit of our great nation.

Bottom line is that you are just flat ass wrong. This state is going the wrong direction fiscally and is leading the country in the move that direction. This will continue until the state is bankrupt. Productive, educated people are leaving. The weather is great, but the welfare system is such that it is a magnet for people that take much more out than they pay in taxes.

People retire, sell there houses and leave. Good people like Hugh and his charming wife are the sort you would want as neighbors. Problem is, smart guy like that has enough sense to leave when he can. I would have never come back here from Texas if my family was not here and a fell into a position where returning where returning was not entirely unreasonable. Financially it was not the best move, but it was probably cheaper than packing my kids and grandkids up and moving them to Texas, probably.

There are people who belong in Texas and Missouri. I'm not one of them. Live wherever you want.

Yes! Maybe I can hand out maps. :D