I Love California

Anyway, I this week, I got a free, all-expenses paid trip to sunny Southern California, courtesy of my employer, which for some unholy reason is headquartered here. It's free, just not really a lot of time for sightseeing when the sun goes down just about the time my training class lets out. And given how expensive everything is, not really worth the effort. I mean, gas is a dollar a gallon more than the already inflated prices in Michigan.

And, really, it's full of really stupid people. I mean, this is a state that downgraded to a misdemeanor from a felony, the KNOWING TRANSMISSION OF HIV. Let that sink in for a second: In this state, it's considered worse for a waiter to give a straw to someone who didn't ask for it than it is to give someone an incurable disease that can only be held in check by massive amounts of expensive medication.

Add to that the idea that they consider themselves a "Sanctuary State," that doesn't have to follow federal immigration law, and you've got the makings of a liberal paradise, which is to say, a hellhole. Funny how the Tenth Amendment is suddenly all the rage, now that Odumbo is out of office, and not forcing us to buy things we can't afford and that don't do a darn thing for us anyway. Yeah, I'm one of those who lost my plan and got a much more expensive plan that covers essentially nothing to replace it. If I ever have the displeasure of meeting the man-child, I will consider it a victory if I can restrain myself from spitting in his face.

Of course, once you get away from the coast, it's a completely different story, the interior is largely conservative, and are actually trying to split into a separate state, which is forbidden by the Constitution, but has the precedent of the creation of West Virginia, and seriously, what do leftists care about the Constitution, anyway?

I say we carve off the part of the state from a line twenty miles west of the I-5 corridor, all the way up up Sacramento, then draw a line to the coast. All that area can be the Republic of Commiefornia, and the rest can stay with the U.S.

The only exceptions will be the Sacramento Delta, which we will keep to irrigate the Central Valley, where so much food is produced, and allowing us to kill off them darn Delta Smelts once and for all, and San Diego, which will continue to be a military base, much like Guantanamo Bay Naval Station in Cuba. Let it be a thorn in their side for all eternity.

You know what really got me off on this little angry outburst? This is a state where every thing is "Fitness This, Fitness That, Conserve This, Conserve That." Well, there are five empty parking places right next to the hotel entrance reserved for "electric cars only," while the rest of the parking lot is full. Not that I'm looking to park a vehicle. My company has a whole fleet of cars here with reserved spaces for just such a purpose. And we use them. It's just all the High and Mighty Rhetoric that ends up being hollow and just so much hot air.

And the worst thing for me is, I like to take my exercise in the form of a nice walk around town,. Well, the geniuses in charge of sidewalks and streets around here haven't the first clue what they're doing. My hotel is on a two lane street with a suicide lane in the middle. Each lane is big enough for two mid-sized cars to travel comfortably side-by-side. You know what's not there? SIDEWALKS.

There are sidewalks at the bottom of the hill, though they sort of stop and start without any warning, and there are crosswalks at places where there are no sidewalks, no crosswalks where there are, and my favorite, crosswalks across the two-lane entrance ramps onto the eight-lane freeway that is a an exit off of the 45 MPH six lane road that I'm trying to walk beside.

There are signs warning off crosswalks, signs saying to stop for pedestrians in crosswalks, but no "Walk/Don't Walk" lights. You know who in California stops for pedestrians in the crosswalks? NO ONE.

Walking, driving, EXISTING in Southern California is stress. The traffic on the highway half an hour ago was still stop-and-go from rush hour. Quarter to Eight.

I will really be glad to get out of here. The best part of the whole trip was lunch at the Salt Lake City airport. I'd have rather stayed there, It reminded me a lot of Alaska. But, I did get to knock one more state off the list: 9 more to go, or 16 if you count all 57.

Anyway, I don't promise to write more often, but I do promise to make the effort.

Hope your day/evening/night were better than mine.