Doug Miller wrote:

In article , "Bruce"
wrote: [snip]

The S.F. Bay Area is congested too but not as much as many
areas on the East Coast.

To any Midwesterner, the Bay Area is indeed "wall-to-wall
cities". It may not be as bad as parts of the East Coast, but
it's still waaaaay more congested than anywhere in the Midwest
(with the possible exception of Chicago).

My last trip to San Jose was like a weird, irrational dream. Rent
for an unfurnished one-bedroom apartment ran over $2K/month. The
City of San Jose was having trouble hiring police, firemen, and
teachers because the salary scales didn't permit these people to
actually reside in San Jose. The Mercury printed a full-page
picture of a tiny bungalow with the caption: "You always wanted a
million dollar estate - you just figured it would have more than
700 square feet." I still have that page somewhere.

Even the eco-freaks drive gas guzzling SUV's. San Jose's
example-setting mayor had to buy a brand new Blazer to drive the
couple of blocks from his home to his office. I'm guessing that
he thought he'd wake up some morning and need 4WD to get over all
the boulders he'd find littering the street.

From my location I had to travel on an eight-lane expressway to
get to the local barber shop. My neighbors thought that was
pretty much normal!

Ditto the grocery stores; and when I got there I found produce
that no Iowa farmer would feed to pigs. I found myself buying
frozen vegetables (imported from Mexico). Not sure why, but I did
expect high-quality produce in (from) California.

And the thing that has always amazed me (and most of the
midwesterners I know) is how Californians seem unable to
distinguish between celebrity and intelligence, wisdom, or
technical competance. I know for a fact that California has no
shortage of really bright people - so why?

It's the only place I've ever been where a public utility (and
politicians) could get away with ripping off their
customers/constituants for billions (thousands of millions) of
dollars just by shutting down portions of the power grid at
intervals. [And although my account was paid in full, PG&E never
did return my several hunderd dollar deposit.]

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto, Iowa USA