patrick.net

I moved from Chicago to California during the dot com bubble.

I don't regret it overall. Both places have problems, but I really didn't like winter or humid summers or mosquitoes. Felt like I was getting away with something by avoiding winter in particular.

The Midwest is at least stable and reasonable in most respects. California is bipolar, with insanely great scenery and weather, and insanely horrible politics.

I could probably have been quite happy in downtown Chicago with a good enough job, but it didn't happen that way.

One regret is that I've been so far from most of my relatives for so long.

Patrick says

One regret is that I've been so far from most of my relatives for so long.

Southwest if you're cool with economy flying. I'm flying every month this year for fun and haven't paid a dime (besides the $11 and change for the 9/11 fees or whatever). 4 hours roughly from SFO to MDW. The free checked luggage is nice, but we've got the packing light thing down now, so we're carryon to avoid waiting for that shit.

Weather matters, but I've always wondered how much I'd "use" the outdoors so to speak in place like CA. Between work, life and all the other shit, I don't have a ton of free time. Winters are awful though here as any skiing/snowboard type actives I like are absolute trash compared to CA/CO/UT/MT places I've been. As I've gotten older the seasonal shit has gotten worse on my head during those dark months. Need sunlight. Hence my desire to get closer to the equator.

CBOEtrader says

If you can manage a career like that then go get after it!

Kids dammit. Sons a bitches. We still do travel a lot though. Once my youngest hit 5 we've been trying to do 2 months a year travel now that he can start remembering this shit. My wife and I both have the SW companion passes, so our kids fly for free and we use points from my wife's work expenses and our regular daily expenses. It's the best thing going for domestic and Caribbean/Mexico/Costa Rica travel.

Need to travel hack international flights a lot better though. Supposed to do Europe next year and the sticker shock on flight prices going from $44-$300 total in this area of the globe, to $600/pp minimum for Europe is nuts. Anyone with tips on good credit card offers or ways to get points for longer haul international flights, I'd love to hear it.

WookieMan says

Weather matters, but I've always wondered how much I'd "use" the outdoors so to speak in place like CA. Between work, life and all the other shit, I don't have a ton of free time.

If you lived out here, you would find time to enjoy all of the amazing geography and weather. I'm an avid surfer and runner and use the shit out of the oceans and local mountains, but just being able to sit on my back patio every morning and enjoy sunshine without humidity and bugs does miracles to my mood. There is so much natural beauty in California it is nice to just get out on a local hike to clear the head and to get outside. You can pretty much guarantee good weather for any outdoor activity all year round. I can't tell you how many times I've had races or sporting events ruined by weather when I lived back East. Every time I went to the Indy 500 back in the 90's I got rained on.

If I still lived in the Midwest, I would probably be 30 pounds heavier as there is absolutely nothing to do in the Winter but sit inside at home or a bar to drink, eat and watch sports. Hot and muggy summers are not much better either....

socal2 says

If I still lived in the Midwest, I would probably be 30 pounds heavier as there is absolutely nothing to do in the Winter but sit inside at home or a bar to drink, eat and watch sports. Hot and muggy summers are not much better either....

I hear ya. It's an unverifiable opinion, but the eating part is better in the Midwest hence the weight gain, lol. Outside of authentic Mexican, I'm not sure I've had what I'd consider a good meal in CA at a high(er) end place (non-chain). I'm sure there's good food somewhere, but I've had little luck and Yelp blows.

I've stopped watching sports for the most part. We need the muggy summer to sweat off that winter weight, so it works out eventually. We also have a fuckload of fresh, drinkable water in our backyard (Lake Michigan - that M F'r is overflowing practically right now) and no fires. No earthquakes either, though y'all have been pretty quiet on that front. Tornados suck here, but never really had one too close.

IL is whacky, but some of the shit I've heard and seen coming out of CA is unbelievable a lot of the time. We at least realized we'd fuck up high speed rail prior to blowing shitloads of money on it (mostly). Because so many people want to go to the shithole known as St. Louis in triple the time of a flight. Trust me though, I'd definitely rather live in CA based on weather/scenery, but not sure I'd enjoy the other stuff. As W-2 employees we'd be touching that 13% income tax level in CA and I'm not sure I'd deal well with that.

Illinois giving people another reason to leave:
https://wgntv.com/2020/02/10/bill-introduced-to-ban-pumping-own-gas-in-illinois/

The Redneck Riviera (i.e., Florida panhandle) has been attracting more and more retirees from the northeast and midwest.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/oracle-moves-headquarters-from-silicon-valley-to-texas-11607724796

Thanks for the heads up Booger. Wow!
From the MarketWatch article:
Other tech companies that have moved their headquarters out of California since the coronavirus pandemic made remote work the norm this year include Hewlett Packard Enterprise HPE, -1.07%, which said last week it is relocating to Houston, Texas, and Palantir Technologies Inc. PLTR, +0.59%, which moved to Denver over the summer. Also this week, Elon Musk, chief executive of Tesla Inc. TSLA, -2.72%, said he has moved to Texas. The electric-car maker is building a new factory outside Austin.

I’m departing Santa Cruz after 38 years next week.
I had a blast living here; surfing, going to San Francisco for adventures, scuba diving in Carmel and hiking in Big Sur.
I’m going to the only area of Florida that I am familiar with, because I can scuba dive there and avoid California taxes.
I’m unwilling to pay for the illegals to get health care and send their kids to school; I won’t pay the pensions of government goldbricks; I won’t pay millionaires at the CHP, Sheriff or fire department; I won’t support the homeless.
I calculated that my California taxes will be about $8000/year in 2021 and go up from there; fuck that.
I might visit each year for a couple of months and spend the 8 grand, but it will be my decision to spend the money.

You can't really describe California the same way you can't describe being in an asylum. When you run across crazy, you can't describe it in any meaningful way, you can only try to act it out in some kind of diorama repeating the crazy by imitation.

If Biden/Harris Presidency becomes reality, then the arrogance of rigged elections and KommiKunt atrocities will only double down in California.

We have to wait until Covid is over, but it really does look like time to take the filthy California lucre and run.

My wife is yammering about it more and more, and she likes the climate here as much as anybody.

Strange thing is, in addition to competing with all the California hordes for everything living here, we will now have to compete with them to leave the fucking place. It's stampede time.

The Illinois, California Exodus

Yes, all those companies will exit those Blue areas and bring lots of employees with them. That will be like a metastasizing cancer in that these folks will go to the unspoiled Red areas but bring their Blue politics along.

I promise not to be a Blue State cancer! I guess we need to wear his and her sandwich boards.

How to fix Illinois:

Chef Ramsay leaving California:

https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/tv-chef-gordon-ramsay-california-texas-restaurant-hq?source=patrick.net

I’ve convinced my wife and two kids that we’re leaving Commiefornia and going to Nashville next Summer. Enough is enough.

porkchopexpress says

I’ve convinced my wife and two kids that we’re leaving Commiefornia

porkchop, thank you for sharing.

Which part of California are you in? Are you a native Californian? If not, when (what age) did you arrive, and why did you come then?

Why did you choose Nashville?

Good luck to you!

WookieMan says

I hear ya. It's an unverifiable opinion, but the eating part is better in the Midwest hence the weight gain, lol. Outside of authentic Mexican, I'm not sure I've had what I'd consider a good meal in CA at a high(er) end place (non-chain). I'm sure there's good food somewhere, but I've had little luck and Yelp blows.

100% correct. Lived in TX for 2 years and CA for 8.

The food overall in CA was bland. While Midwest crushed it everywhere I went. From TX to OK, to KS, IL/MI.

In Atlanta now where it's hit/miss.

Wookie is on point with this.

https://conservativebrief.com/florida-2-56319/?source=patrick.net

Florida Registered GOP Voters Outnumber Dems For First Time Ever

B.A.C.A.H. says

porkchopexpress says

I’ve convinced my wife and two kids that we’re leaving Commiefornia

porkchop, thank you for sharing.

Which part of California are you in? Are you a native Californian? If not, when (what age) did you arrive, and why did you come then?

Why did you choose Nashville?

Good luck to you!

We're in San Diego county and been here for over 10 years. I've lived in many places but mostly in CA.

I'm now fully remote so me and the wife went through a significant analysis of COL, taxes, family, freedom, weather, schools, etc. There are pros and cons, but we landed on Nashville because of the following:
- We do have some family there. We have no family in CA.
- No state income tax and low property tax. I have a high income so this impacts us quite a bit.
- Red state. Gun friendly. People chanting "Let's go brandon" in bars.
- Relatively nice climate when you think about other states (minus CA of course). True 4 seasons and nothing extreme in winter or summer.
- Great schools and universities close by.
- The vibe. We visited Nashville and surround burbs and loved the atmosphere. Roads were good, cities clean, people nice, etc. Also, we love live music and our family is musical, so Nashville really only competes with Austin in that domain.
- Nice scenery and landscape. This is a reason I'm not as crazy about Texas or FL.
- Close to a lot within a days drive. We can drive to the FL panhandle in about 6 hours and be at white sandy beaches.

Of course, tornadoes are a downer and I'll miss the SCAL weather for sure, but the trade-offs are far too great to stay here anymore.

porkchopexpress says

the trade-offs are far too great to stay here anymore.

Fascinating.

Thank you for sharing.

Looks like Dave Rubin is evacuating...

Personal thanks to @GavinNewsom as I am officially leaving the dystopian nightmare of California for the free state of Florida. My successful business and all my employees are coming with.

See you soon, @GovRonDeSantis!

🐊😎🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/XC51yYRqZK

— Dave Rubin (@RubinReport) December 13, 2021

B.A.C.A.H. says

porkchopexpress says

the trade-offs are far too great to stay here anymore.

Fascinating.

Thank you for sharing.

Are you contemplating something similar?

porkchopexpress says

I’ve convinced my wife and two kids that we’re leaving Commiefornia and going to Nashville next Summer. Enough is enough.

We too are leaving early next year, been looking at properties in Florida. I do have to say, it's cheaper, but only slightly more conservative than CA. Plenty of same corporations with their fag flags and BLM signs there too in Tampa. But i you go further out of the city, it gets more conservative.

porkchopexpress says

Are you contemplating something similar?

No.

Unlike you, Patrick and others who have shared on this blog, I am a local with deep roots here that compel me to remain under the present circumstances. Like a Palestinian in Israel or an Anglo-Irish in Ireland or a white South African.

That said, I am open minded that the circumstances could change, so I am interested in the motivations of others who acted on the decision to leave, and how they chose where to leave to. I am particularly interested about those who have only ever lived here and elected to leave their deep roots.

We are just now contemplating a 'window of flight' to some safe haven where we could rent a place and leave our properties here under custodianship remotely. Somewhere in mountain Arizona or Nevada sounds like a reasonable bet. There is too much uncertainty everywhere to think that permanent lily pad hopping might make something better. Investigating places requires direct hands on exploration, and probably staying for a while to see what they are like. Arizona has an active conservative militia that could work.

Things are too much in the air and unpredictable at the moment. We may take some spring journeys to check things out. SoCal will likely be going feral pretty rapidly, especially with the illegal influxes. Crime will be the only way they can make a living.

B.A.C.A.H. says

Unlike you, Patrick and others who have shared on this blog, I am a local with deep roots here that compel me to remain under the present circumstances.

Which is fine. As an outsider I've bashed CA. As a tourist I love CA. And with any move the grass isn't alway green on the other side. If weather is the number 1 issue, I'd stay in CA and deal with the negatives.

I don't like Nashville. Was just there. Very transient. Lots of younger people move there trying to get into music. Has a solid corporate business foothold, so there's jobs. PorkChop is right about 6 hours to the Panhandle. But there's a shit ton within 6 hours in any direction from central TN. Big negatives about the Nashville area is winter occasionally happens. It's a shit show. No plows, salt or sand. Basically it shuts down. Tornados as mentioned. Humidity from the Great Lakes down to FL can be brutal if you're not used to it. Solid airport centrally located, so flights to east, west and Caribbean are generally 3 hours non-stop.

Not moving out of state or out of town, but I've now been pegged with finding construction lenders.... fuck. Not sure if anyone has rehabbed a house, but today is bittersweet. 100's if not thousands of hours of work is going to be someone else's soon. Never intended having 3 kids in this house, 2 would have worked, but the time has come. Might list this spring. Kind of depressed about it to be honest. I'm also burned out from the constant projects. So maybe a new house will be nice. Giving up the fight and we'll likely be building new. Fuck again.

FortWayneAsNancyPelosiHaircut says

We too are leaving early next year, been looking at properties in Florida. I do have to say, it's cheaper, but only slightly more conservative than CA. Plenty of same corporations with their fag flags and BLM signs there too in Tampa. But i you go further out of the city, it gets more conservative.

Tampa is very left wing... it's more Left wing than Miami-Dade/Broward in some ways. Lots of Minnesota/Illinois/MI/WI Gov Employees retire there. West Coast of FL has a lot of meth, weirdly it's much less just on the other coast.

If you don't need to go to the beach every weekend, check Central Florida, or the East Coast North of Martin County. Haven't been to the Panhandle so can't speak for it. Area around Jacksonville is based but there is a lot of crime in the city. You'll pretty much be an hour from the coast at most where-ever you live in Florida.

There will be very good deals in a year or two when the real estate market collapses. Every 10-15 years Florida has a cycle of R/E boom-bust, and we'll probably have a national supercycle at that point too.

I personally love Brevard and Volusia counties the most. But again, the prices have definitely spiked hard since 2020.

WookieMan says

Not moving out of state or out of town, but I've now been pegged with finding construction lenders.... fuck. Not sure if anyone has rehabbed a house, but today is bittersweet. 100's if not thousands of hours of work is going to be someone else's soon. Never intended having 3 kids in this house, 2 would have worked, but the time has come. Might list this spring. Kind of depressed about it to be honest. I'm also burned out from the constant projects. So maybe a new house will be nice. Giving up the fight and we'll likely be building new. Fuck again.

You're going to build your own new house? Why bother when many are for sale? Maybe low inventory in your area?

AmericanKulak says

Area around Jacksonville is based but there is a lot of crime in the city.

I've heard that many times before, but since I live in Baltimore City, I would have to think that it's very safe compared to what I am used to.

AmericanKulak says

If you don't need to go to the beach every weekend, check Central Florida, or the East Coast North of Martin County

I thought that one typically doesn't go to the beach even in Key West in the middle of the winter.

AmericanKulak says

There will be very good deals in a year or two when the real estate market collapses.

That is what I am hoping for!

Ceffer says

We are just now contemplating a 'window of flight' to some safe haven where we could rent a place and leave our properties here under custodianship remotely. Somewhere in mountain Arizona or Nevada sounds like a reasonable bet. There is too much uncertainty everywhere to think that permanent lily pad hopping might make something better. Investigating places requires direct hands on exploration, and probably staying for a while to see what they are like. Arizona has an active conservative militia that could work.

Things are too much in the air and unpredictable at the moment. We may take some spring journeys to check things out. SoCal will likely be going feral pretty rapidly, especially with the illegal influxes. Crime will be the only way they can make a living.

We bought a rural property (>50 acres) because things can go south in a big city rather quickly, even in Texas. Local populace consists of rednecks and Hispanics which mix pretty well, with an average number of guns per household of about 20. I feel quite inferior since I don't have half of that. Such heavily armed populace probably is better than having an organized militia since that can be tracked down and squashed easier. We considered a few things: land has to be somewhat fertile so you can grow enough food - I am not sure if buying in AZ or NV would give you fertile land; water on land - we have a stream in back of property and a few ponds; dead end road; neighbors should be reasonable which is the most difficult thing to judge - but one can usually spot trailer trash and the closest candidate is 3 or 4 miles from us; should be sufficiently far from large city (I'd say at least 50 miles); large enough property so that you can hunt.

If you put all that together, parts of Texas look pretty good. It won't be as pretty as AZ or NV mountains or have as nice climate, but land is fertile and populace heavily armed.

WookieMan says

I don't like Nashville. Was just there. Very transient. Lots of younger people move there trying to get into music. Has a solid corporate business foothold, so there's jobs. PorkChop is right about 6 hours to the Panhandle. But there's a shit ton within 6 hours in any direction from central TN. Big negatives about the Nashville area is winter occasionally happens. It's a shit show. No plows, salt or sand. Basically it shuts down. Tornados as mentioned. Humidity from the Great Lakes down to FL can be brutal if you're not used to it. Solid airport centrally located, so flights to east, west and Caribbean are generally 3 hours non-stop.

Fair comment about Nashville but we wouldn't live in Nashville proper but a suburb outside. Regarding weather, Nashville seems decent especially compared to states other than CA. For how rare snow happens, I can deal because my cars are AWD and I have no daily commute.

Fact is, I can't deal with the cons of CA anymore. The mandatory vaccination for kids in schools was the final straw. If that means dealing with some imperfect weather, bring it on.

Kim Iversen: 'Leftugees' FLEE Blue States Amid HORRIBLE Dem Policies, DIRE Need For Self-Reflection

One of my wife's work friends moved to Nashville suburb and loved it. She couldn't believe (after California) that she had nice friends right away. She only moved later because she was chasing her kids around.

Ceffer says

One of my wife's work friends moved to Nashville suburb and loved it. She couldn't believe (after California) that she had nice friends right away. She only moved later because she was chasing her kids around.

Good to hear. We visited it recently as a family for the first time and really liked it. The people, the vibe, etc.

zzyzzx says

I thought that one typically doesn't go to the beach even in Key West in the middle of the winter.

I've gone to Florida beaches in winter, and swam - all the time when I was a kid, and later with my own kids. It's a little too cool towards the end of winter, but far from needing a wet suit like on the Left Coast or diving for the Cross in January in New Jersey (did that). Key West and South Florida can be in the 80s with humidity even in Winter. North Florida is a bit cooler. I went swimming at an amusement park with my kid just a few weekends ago in Orlando, no problem.

The Gulf Stream is much warmer (and closer to the shore) than it is in the North, so Ocean swimming is nowhere near as cold as it is in the North in Winter.

I’m originally from MT and lived in AK before moving to LA for work. 20 years down there I saw things go from reasonable to unreasonable. Everything from house prices to traffic. I lived in s. oc then Long Beach. It was great but glad to leave. Bought in MT when prices were reasonable as well. Fixed it up until moving here full time. Both of us still work for CA companies and thank god for Elon! Starlink is faster than anything we had in CA.

A relief (so far) for us has been the courts shooting down the mandates. If they tried to force-vax rather than just intimidate-vax in CA, we would have our go bags to hunker down elsewhere until the storm passed. Fortunately, we don't need to work to do that.

It doesn't look like things are going so well for the psychopathic vaccination plague. It could all resolve within the next year. The kick back I was hoping for last year is starting to happen now, with all of the increasing, obvious tyrannical atrocities.

I suspect that in the next couple of months that crowds in Europe will be storming the bureaucrats haunts and physically dragging them out unless major fire power is deployed. That will just lead to more push back on them. They will wind up dragged to the nooses and guillotines.