The Glade 4.0

Don't dwell on the negatives, don't knock other places, brag about where you live, what makes you happy there.

In another thread I mentioned it was the weather in California. We have seasons, they just don't tend to be as extreme as elsewhere, and if you aren't in the mountains, you never shovel snow.

Second place is you can find almost any type of food you want year-round. Not everything, but if you can't prepare great meals out of what you can find at one of the thousands of Farmer's markets in the State (many open once a week, year round) you are not trying.

What do you love about your home state/city/region?

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

- I'm far enough away from downtown that I don't get the noise, but it's a $7 cab if I wanna get in the mix. Cheaper than parking.
- Less than a mile in the other direction, we have what is becoming known as a beer mecca of San Diego
- A dozen restaurants or bars within walking distance
- Great weather. EVERY DAY.
- Balboa Park and SD Zoo both in spitting distance
- 24/7 delivery service
- Farmers Market a block away every week

(Almost) never too hot
(Almost) never too cold

Other than that, not too much.

Three seasons (we skip Spring around here)
Beach in walking distance
Giant lake to fish in
1/2 hour from downtown
1/2 hour from my parents
45 minutes from 3/4 of my siblings
Professional Football and Baseball teams
Amazing theater district (2nd largest in the nation behind NY Lincoln Center)
Home to one of the top three orchestras in the world

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At the risk of violating your stipulation about knocking other places, I find your claim that you have seasons suspect when you mentioned in that other post that you went to the grocery in shorts and sandals.

I love a good winter. Cold weather's in my blood, I think, through centuries of Scandinavian Darwinian selection and then recent generations culturally acclimated to places like Chicago and Cleveland. Ohio gives me enough of it to keep me content.

And we get the best storms here in the Midwest. Lightning is gorgeous.

I've grown to be a sucker for misty mornings, the way the light softens and the features soften out to the horizon. The Miami Valley delivers these in spades throughout autumn and early winter.

We have deciduous trees, and the leaves have time to change in our cool autumns. Not always as stunningly as in some parts of New England, but it's never straight from green to brown like it is in drier areas.

You can't beat fresh, local Strawberries, and we're a town known for our annual Strawberry festival, so they're easy to find everywhere, and prepared seven ways to Sunday.

I'm most comfortable in a small town/suburbia setting near the border between the truly rural and a small urban center. Dayton may not be the most healthy city around, economically speaking, but it still fits this bill nicely.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Ever since I first arrived in Utah at age 7, I was in awe of the mountain ranges here. Where I grew up (Upper Michigan), there were no mountains; I'd only read about them in books. Lots of snow, and folks that sounded more Canadian than actual Canadians, but no mountains. But here I am surrounded by two mountain ranges on the west and east side and I am treated to this skyline every day on my drive to work. And in the summer as evening sets on, they do indeed become "purple mountains majesty".

I also like that even though I live 10+ miles west of Salt Lake city, in a place that 10 years ago was nothing but fields, I have 4G cell phone service and fiber internet. I am grateful for that where I live.

Edit: Oh, and I am also grateful that natural weather disasters are rare here. Hurricanes, obviously never happen. Because we're surrounded by mountain ranges, tornadoes are an extreme rarity. They happen maybe once a decade or less. The only thing folks here fear are earthquakes. I should say, "THE Earthquake." We don't get many. But, the whole valley is built on an ancient lakebed (lake Bonneville). And many fear that when the big one comes..... that's it.

I do wish we got more thunderstorms though. I am jealous of Kaffis for that. I like rain and thunder.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

Except for a rare couple cold days like what we're in right now, in South Florida it's always summer time.

Tons of things to do (ocean, theme parks, etc) if you're into that sort of thing.

My tomatoes started coming in last week, and I'll be picking them for another month. After that, the only thing keeping me from planting squash is giving the soil a little rest.

No shoveling snow. No raking leaves.

I'll contest Kaffis's claim about the best storms (this is not a knock!) Florida is the lightning capital of the U.S. Scarybad lightning, awesome to watch. Even a hurricane is kind of fun the first time around.

The smell of orange groves and jasmine on a summer night if the wind is coming out of the west.

Everything is green year-round. No dreary gray skies, brown trees, and black soot-filled snow piles.

Palm trees.

Brown Anole lizards *everywhere*. (No really, you can't walk a foot without seeing one run by) They eat the bugs off my plants, and they have a lot of character so they're fun to watch.

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Philadelphia is the birthplace of our nation. Our most important documents were written and placed into effect here. The liberty bell, independence hall, and many other important historical places like Valley Forge are within a 30 minute drive. Gettysburg is also a historically important to thie state and most importantly Hershey Bars were first produced here. YUMMY
I would have to say also, I like having 4 seasons. The snow can be a pain in the butt sometimes, but overall it is nice to experience all four. The shore is a close drive as well. Don't like the Ocean, but the boardwalk is fun. We have many antique stores and a city that has been burning for about 50 years. We have the Pocono Hills (for u Micheal) which are a nice diversion from urban life.

Natural disasters is something that my state can avoid fairly well. No earthquakes-well at least not up until this passed year, Really don't have tornados, and hurricanes are usually just left over winds. Which is great for kite flying.

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"None is more important, none more legitimate, than that of rendering the people safe as they are the
ultimate guardians of their own liberty."- Thomas Jefferson

"Yeah, I'm rehearsing my poker face. I don't handle stupid well. *sigh*" - Farsky

http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/mo/o-f ... irie/#desc

The cost of living is about 10% lower than anywhere in the US, violent crime is pretty much non-existent. Schools are great and everything you need is close by. Average time for folks living here to get to work is 30 minutes.

http://www.trulia.com/real_estate/Darde ... nity-info/
http://www.homefacts.com/crime/Missouri ... airie.html

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In time, this too shall pass.

I love that I can go for a walk at night and not have to worry about my safety. I like that people here are actually friendly. There is much less light here so I can actually see the night sky. We have actual seasons here. We get snow, but not too much that it becomes a huge hassle. There are hundreds of places not 20 miles from me that I can go camping, hunting or fishing. Air quality is fantastic.

It's just so much better than anywhere else that I have lived. Ever.

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Los Angeles Kings 2014 Stanley Cup Champions

"I love this **** team right here."
-Jonathan Quick

I love Utah for tons of reasons. There are always four very distinct seasons we go through every year. Occasionally one of them only lasts a couple weeks, but they're always there.

We have awesome mountains surrounding us, filled with some of the best resorts in the country. Within a half hour of where I live there are dozens of hiking trails, caves, mines, wildlife, lakes and waterfalls to be found. Some of the best rock climbing areas in the country. One of the premiere ice climbing canyons in the world. One of the best fly fishing rivers in the country. Tons of outdoors opportunities from mountain biking to atv's.

Within a few hours there is lots more. Salt Lake is about half an hour away if you're into bigger cities. There are a dozen National Parks within a few hours drive, a few of which are among the most beautiful and best in the country. There's everything from the bonneville salt flats (seen in tons of videos and movies, even though you may not realize it) and the basin and range desert in the west, to the grandiose and beautiful (and highest east/west running range in the country) Uintah Mountains. You know those pretty images of high mountain lakes? That's what the Uintah's look like. And those lakes are everywhere up there.

There's one of the most Native American art decorated canyons at Nine Mile Canyon about an hour away, and it's spectacular; literally hundreds, if not thousands, of images carved or painted in the rocks. Beautiful slickrock country in the south, which includes some of the best biking and four-wheeling areas in the county.

There's also easy access to most of the west. Vegas is only about 6 hours away by car. Denver and southern Cali are both about 10. Within the same time frame there are quite possibly hundreds of national and state parks, as well as all sorts of tiny not well known but still amazing areas to explore.



There are lots of earthquakes in Utah, but generally speaking they're far too small to feel. The "big one" that's due could be a huge problem here in Utah Valley though. If a large enough slip occurs along the fault, the west side of the valley could drop a dozen feet or more, causing Utah Lake to literally move to the other side of the valley, flooding and demolishing Provo. Along with liquefaction that occurs due to the lake bed sediments that many have built upon, this could lead to tens of thousands of deaths in the valley if it were to happen. Not good for sure.

Oh, perhaps I wasn't clear. "best storms" is a holistic qualifier, not tied solely to any one metric. Frequency and quality of thunderstorms, lightning strikes, destructive capacity, wind intensity (there's a "sweet spot" in the middle, for me -- I like a strong gust, but too strong and you edge into potential damage with driving and standing structures), type and quantity of accompanying precipitation, etc.

Florida certainly gets interesting thunderstorms, as well, but they also get to enjoy every hurricane that sneezes at the Gulf, which is a factor I weigh against the "best storms" category.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

A distinct lack of snow
Mexican food

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Pineview dam will also likely break, and Weber County is going to be in a very bad spot as well.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

What do I love about where I live? Let me enumerate....

1) The weather.
2) I'm an hour's drive from two baseball stadiums (A's and Giants) and two football stadiums (Niners and Raiders).
3) I'm a light rail trip (about 20 min) from HP Pavilion, home of the Sharks and many concerts throughout the year.
4) I'm less than an hour from the ocean.
5) I'm about three hours from the Sierras and four and a half hours from Reno/Tahoe.
6) The many reservoirs/nature trails/parks for the fishermen/hikers/bikers/equestrians/birdwatchers, etc.
7) Winchester Mystery House/Rosicrucian Museum/Tech Museum/Children's Discovery Museum, etc.

Those are just a few of the reasons I love where I live.

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"Said I never had much use for one, never said I didn't know how to use one!"~ Matthew Quigley

"nothing like a little meow in bed at night" ~ Bruskey

"I gotta float my stick same as you" Hondo Lane

"Fill your hand you son of a *****!"

I love the springtime when I get to laugh at people who have hay/pollen allergies and moved here unwittingly from out west or up north where the pollen count is like at worst double digits or low 100s.. and then they suddenly find the pollen count over 2000.

20 minutes from work. That is the only good thing I can say about where I live...

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Raell Kromwell

Its open 24 hours. If I want wilderness, its less than a half an hour away. If I want watersports, its less than half an hour away. If I want snow in the "winter" its less than half an hour away. Shows, food, clubs and all kinds of stuff like that is less than half an hour away.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Plus, you have the most incredible performance venue for Phantom imaginable.

Off street parking. Also there are no hurricanes.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

care to elaborate?

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

No. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

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I should have known better, my apologies.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Within a short drive, I have:

The cultural center of DC
The cultural center of NY
The laid back small towns of the MD Eastern Shore
Historic areas such as Annapolis and Philadelphia
The Chesapeake Bay
The Atlantic Sea Coast
The Appalachian Mountains
Several large lakes
Vast tracts of forest
Horse racing
Shopping
Outdoor sports
Huge farms

This area really does have everything - except desert.

I know all the back roads.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville