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Move to California? Current Surly Residents


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7 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

I’ve know a few folks who have said that Milwaukee is wildly, wildly underrated fwiw. 
 

I can go on and on about Houston. Columbus can fuck right off and die, no matter what Parliament says. 

Went there in 2005.  Columbus fucking sucks.  And Ohio State fans are pure trash in jerseys.  Fuck them and that shithole.  

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My older brother lived in the East Bay for about 10 years (as well as LA and San Francisco for another 10). He moved his family (wife and three kids) back to Houston about 3 years ago. Part of that was to be closer to family, but also because California is expensive as fuck (and he makes a very good living). I think he got tired of the politics as well. I don’t think he misses much about it besides weather and a couple of restaurants.

That’s about all I got. Nice place to visit, not the best for living.

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47 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

I’ve know a few folks who have said that Milwaukee is wildly, wildly underrated fwiw. 
 

I can go on and on about Houston. Columbus can fuck right off and die, no matter what Parliament says. 

Milwaukee and Pittsburgh are super underrated cities

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19 minutes ago, Hate said:

Until winter time. 

And much of Texas sucks 9 months out of the year, the North is fucking cold, and California is so expensive it is wildly inhibitive, etc. Every place has some form of poison folks are going to have to pick. And in the case of Ohio, there are no positives because you're surrounded by human filth. 

 

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10 hours ago, UT_OB1 said:

I don’t get this reasoning that seems to pop up when everyone is swooning over California. There is a fuck ton of stuff to do outdoors in Texas that is pretty easy to get to, certainly as easy as it is to drive to if you live in LA.  Yeah, it’s not redwoods. So what?  Every place has something awesome to do and beautiful to explore.  Except Oklahoma*
 

*actually, there is a very nice (state?) park near Wynnewood and arrowhead state park and lake eufaula are pretty nice 

 

As a kid, I'd spend summers on my parents farm north of Denton. We'd drive up to Turner Falls in southern OK. Seemed pretty nice swimming hole, waterfall, etc. This was 40 years ago, however.

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6 minutes ago, High Plains Drifter said:

 

As a kid, I'd spend summers on my parents farm north of Denton. We'd drive up to Turner Falls in southern OK. Seemed pretty nice swimming hole, waterfall, etc. This was 40 years ago, however.

As long as you held your breath and encountered or interacted with zero locals, I'm sure it was delightful. 

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12 hours ago, gmr548 said:


Have to agree. 3,500k square feet is a fuckton of space. So much space that the only way it's appealing is for a massive family or if you live somewhere that sucks so much you have to compensate by filling your house up with shit to keep you occupied - aka suburban Texas. If you need 3,500k square feet with everything northern California has to offer, that's kind of a sad existance.

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Sorry, but 3,000 sq ft for four is a minimum  to me, and I have never lived in the suburbs in my whole life.  I lived in central Dallas with a family of four in 7,700 square feet and it was great.  My current 3,700 square foot house in central Houston is too small.  

I went and loved it, so i priced the Sonoma River area once and decided it made more sense to buy a second home in Europe.  
LA is just untenable to me as a place to live. Great place to visit, but the traffic and the bullshit would overwhelm me.  Maybe it’s just the bullshit I know, but 4 days there is about enough for me. 

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9 minutes ago, Liquor and Poker said:

Sorry, but 3,000 sq ft for four is a minimum  to me, and I have never lived in the suburbs in my whole life.  I lived in central Dallas with a family of four in 7,700 square feet and it was great.  My current 3,700 square foot house in central Houston is too small.  

I went and loved it, so i priced the Sonoma River area once and decided it made more sense to buy a second home in Europe.  
LA is just untenable to me as a place to live. Great place to visit, but the traffic and the bullshit would overwhelm me.  Maybe it’s just the bullshit I know, but 4 days there is about enough for me. 

Reminds me of this:

 

https://www.buzzfeed.com/amphtml/benrosen/6-castles-that-cost-less-than-an-apartment-in-nyc

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Milwaukee and Pittsburgh are super underrated cities
My Mom's family is from Pittsburgh so we always went up there during the summers. I loved it. No idea what kind of industry they have these days though. It always felt very much like a blue collar town. Winters can also be brutal of course.
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20 minutes ago, Liquor and Poker said:

Sorry, but 3,000 sq ft for four is a minimum  to me, and I have never lived in the suburbs in my whole life.  I lived in central Dallas with a family of four in 7,700 square feet and it was great.  My current 3,700 square foot house in central Houston is too small.  

I went and loved it, so i priced the Sonoma River area once and decided it made more sense to buy a second home in Europe.  
LA is just untenable to me as a place to live. Great place to visit, but the traffic and the bullshit would overwhelm me.  Maybe it’s just the bullshit I know, but 4 days there is about enough for me. 

Why do you hate the other members of your family so much ??

 

3,700 is too small and 7,700 is just right ?  

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18 minutes ago, Okie State said:
1 hour ago, 52-80 said:
Milwaukee and Pittsburgh are super underrated cities

My Mom's family is from Pittsburgh so we always went up there during the summers. I loved it. No idea what kind of industry they have these days though. It always felt very much like a blue collar town. Winters can also be brutal of course.

There was some article that came out a couple years ago, and I was surprised to learn that Pittsburgh is actually not that big of a city.The article said that Katy, TX was going to be bigger than Pittsburgh by like 2020 or 2022 or something. 

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2 hours ago, SydneyCarton said:

I’ve know a few folks who have said that Milwaukee is wildly, wildly underrated fwiw. 
 

I can go on and on about Houston. Columbus can fuck right off and die, no matter what Parliament says. 

I always thought it would be pretty cool being right on the lake.  
 

as for California, fires and power outages aren’t your issues.  It’s can you deal with the COL, traffic, political ineptness, high taxes.  If so, it’s a pretty awesome place to live.  I’ve built up a tolerance to those things.

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Sorry, but 3,000 sq ft for four is a minimum  to me, and I have never lived in the suburbs in my whole life.  I lived in central Dallas with a family of four in 7,700 square feet and it was great.  My current 3,700 square foot house in central Houston is too small.  
I went and loved it, so i priced the Sonoma River area once and decided it made more sense to buy a second home in Europe.  
LA is just untenable to me as a place to live. Great place to visit, but the traffic and the bullshit would overwhelm me.  Maybe it’s just the bullshit I know, but 4 days there is about enough for me. 

Lol of course 3k square feet is going to feel small when your point of reference is a mansion that equates to a large three -bedroom apartment per person for four people, with room left over. Nice humblebrag though.

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1 minute ago, gmr548 said:


Lol of course 3k square feet is going to feel small when your point of reference is a mansion that equates to a large three -bedroom apartment per person for four people, with room left over. Nice humblebrag though.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
 

We've had about 3,800 sq. feet since '98, and I'm fantasizing about moving in to 2,000 as soon as I can get it designed, and it under construction.

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12 hours ago, hornhorn said:

Yes but its either too hot, too cold or wet to do it. Dallas just went from 98 at 6 in the evening two weeks ago to about 40 right now. There's a window of six weeks to do outdoorsy stuff when you aren't dehydrated or getting swarmed by mosquitos. In the summer, in Texas and Louisiana we have evenings that last two months where the temperature is in 90s with humidity. Fuck that BS.

West coast CA doesn't have that problem and hence the swooning. 

Yes, you largely can’t be pussy about it, but there’s plenty of things to do, even while it’s humid.  Is the Wx worth needing 300% increase to maintain similar lifestyle?  Guess it all depends on how much you sweat? 

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43 minutes ago, Dr. Beeper said:

Y’all wanna know how big my house is and where I live?  After that we can swap dick pics?

Liquor and Poker is the high class version of Rocko. 

I may be getting my handles mixed up from TOS but aren’t you the authority on all things Park Cities?   Kind of the same thing L&P has going on, no? 

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8 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

Yes, you largely can’t be pussy about it, but there’s plenty of things to do, even while it’s humid.  Is the Wx worth needing 300% increase to maintain similar lifestyle?  Guess it all depends on how much you sweat? 

Its a matter of having the option to not deal with the shitty weather. Just like Texas has better weather than Columbus and we enjoy that option. You aren't a pussy if you don't choose to go live in Columbus. 

And he has already mentioned that his household income currently as a fellow is around $300K which will be a lot more once the fellowship is over so money isn't the issue.

For middle class, Texas is a better option. For someone doing better, CA is a no brainer.

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California is more about doing more with less because the climate and scenery are worth it. Someone else said it, you don't get Muir Woods or the PCH anywhere in Texas. Big Bend might be the closest as far as pure nature beauty. If the same option presented itself to my wife and I, we would strongly consider it.

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2 hours ago, 52-80 said:

Milwaukee and Pittsburgh are super underrated cities

I lived in Milwaukee for a year while doing work at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Since I was a short timer, we rented and didn't have to deal with clearing the snow. Summers are beautiful. Winter is way too long but there are enough hills and nice areas to go sledding and do things as opposed to say NYC where it just piles up on the sides of the road as brown ice.

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1 hour ago, Liquor and Poker said:

Sorry, but 3,000 sq ft for four is a minimum  to me, and I have never lived in the suburbs in my whole life.  I lived in central Dallas with a family of four in 7,700 square feet and it was great.  My current 3,700 square foot house in central Houston is too small.  

I went and loved it, so i priced the Sonoma River area once and decided it made more sense to buy a second home in Europe.  
LA is just untenable to me as a place to live. Great place to visit, but the traffic and the bullshit would overwhelm me.  Maybe it’s just the bullshit I know, but 4 days there is about enough for me. 

This fucking guy

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The pros and cons have been mentioned but here’s a real estate story worth mentioning.

We know a woman who is a SVP at a large corporation in the Bay Area.  Family of four.  She had to stretch to buy a house in San Bruno for $1.7M.  Not terrible but nothing extravagant.  4/2  that needed some cosmetic work.  She stretched so much that she waived earthquake insurance.  (She got lucky there.)

When she sold, it went for $2.4M to some 32 year old tech guy who paid cash.

Her point was that she struggled to live there with a family and she was an SVP at a Fortune 100 company.

 

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BTW, I also spent about 10 years working in the Bay Area and living in Palo Alto, Mountain View, and Capitola (by Santa Cruz). I am working on a venture out in Santa Barbara so there is a possibility to move back. I just have to get the business to purchase a small home for me near the beach. The only negatives were the cost of living, taxes, traffic and long commutes. But, if your income or job situation allows you to avoid traffic, California is hard to beat. I will say though that from the West Bay, I could do more skiing by flying to Salt Lake for the weekend than I could by driving to Tahoe.

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1 hour ago, Liquor and Poker said:

Sorry, but 3,000 sq ft for four is a minimum  to me, and I have never lived in the suburbs in my whole life.  I lived in central Dallas with a family of four in 7,700 square feet and it was great.  My current 3,700 square foot house in central Houston is too small.  

Confused-Jacksonville-Jaguars-fan-in-stands.gif

 

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4 minutes ago, Aqua Buddha said:

The pros and cons have been mentioned but here’s a real estate story worth mentioning.

We know a woman who is a SVP at a large corporation in the Bay Area.  Family of four.  She had to stretch to buy a house in San Bruno for $1.7M.  Not terrible but nothing extravagant.  4/2  that needed some cosmetic work.  She stretched so much that she waived earthquake insurance.  (She got lucky there.)

When she sold, it went for $2.4M to some 32 year old tech guy who paid cash.

Her point was that she struggled to live there with a family and she was an SVP at a Fortune 100 company.

 

This is true, but it depends on your stage of life. My kids are going to college so I don't need a big house any more. I can buy an 1800 sq foot home near the beach with no yard for a little over a million. It sucks paying about triple Austin prices, but it is nice not having to deal with bugs and heat and humidity. My family has always preferred Texas, saving the cash and flying to the Rockies or the Caribbean or Europe for vacations. My wife is from California, though so she is much happier being close to her childhood friends and family.

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3 hours ago, Johnny Sack said:

Went there in 2005.  Columbus fucking sucks.  And Ohio State fans are pure trash in jerseys.  Fuck them and that shithole.  

The only time I visited Columbus I stayed in Bexley. It was really nice. Columbus has some kickass ice cream places.

But yeah, OSU fans blow.

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1 hour ago, SydneyCarton said:

There was some article that came out a couple years ago, and I was surprised to learn that Pittsburgh is actually not that big of a city.The article said that Katy, TX was going to be bigger than Pittsburgh by like 2020 or 2022 or something. 

That's because aggies reproduce like crazy so they can fill Kroger Field in 18 years. 

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Palo Alto is nice but when you have to drive through certain parts of SF, Berkley and most of Oakland (and you will have to at some point), just be prepared for the third-world levels of filth and deprivation that you'll see.

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1 hour ago, Dr. Beeper said:

So you’re poor, but still a high class version of Rocko. Got it. 

I mean, there are lots of things that you can call me, but sometimes they just go over the line...

57 minutes ago, mdmost said:

I'm sorry, where in Central Dallas are there 7700 sq ft homes?

Do you need a realtor?  I know a few.  

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We're all doing this the wrong way. The underlying assumption is that OP is going to do California in some sort of modern-day Leave It to Beaver episode, where June Cleaver sits there in her generic McMansion, scrolling through her phone screaming at Alexa.

What OP should do first, is outflank California by going to Guadalajara and working his ass off at a menial job for a dollar an hour for at least a year. He gets first one jealous woman pregnant, then another one. He pisses off his brother-in-law who has cartel ties. Then OP rides on top of a freight car to Tijuana, and walks into California.

He roofs houses, washes dishes, and bunks in a 1960 ranch house with 8 other guys. (These could also be Americans, if he tricks a bunch of his USA friends into the Guadalajara gig.) The life, she is hard, but he appreciates what he has.

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