Someone want to welcome me back to The Lounge?

[Tyler Durden]

I tried so hard to explain a Midwestern point of view about California. I tried so hard. Nobody listened, everyone treated me like a yahoo.

Don't bother to check, you won't like the war.

Nice to be home.

[Tyler Durden]

1. Don't make me go back there.

It's dark and dirty. I might poke my eye out.

[Lance_Boyle]

2. As a transplanted Southern Californian working for GM in North Carolina,

Nah, I kid. Hey, it's the lounge. It's for kidding, right? But how hard did you wince when you read the subject line? :P

[Tyler Durden]

6. Harder than you can imagine, friend.

GD is the only place on earth where you can try and explain a reaction that leads from one's own shortcoming, and the response is the online version of a backhanded slap across the face.

Tell you what...I understand them even less now. It's like "keep your compassion unless it's ABSOLUTE, NO DOUBTS, NO HOLDING BACK, GIVE IT UP, B*TCH!"

[lost-in-nj]

3. Welcome back!!!

how long were you gone!!!?????????


pull up a stool and tell us about your trip!

:hi:

lost

[Tyler Durden]

8. What can I say? Weather's a little damp and chilly looking forward to fire in the fireplace at home

GD IS STILL PLUPERFECT HELL ON EARTH.

How's by you?

[Dr. Strange]

4. CALL YOUR LOUNGE REPRESENTATIVE RIGHT NOW!

Welcome back. We yahoos missed you.

[Tyler Durden]

11. LORD they get hot and bothered there.

I SWEAR, if you apologized profusely for something, a poster over there would jump in with "ABOUT FUCKING TIME, ASSHOLE."

[Dr. Strange]

19. Maybe for Christmas, we should donate several tons of fiber cereal to GD.

Maybe a couple of cases of exlax. Think they'd appreciate that?

[Tyler Durden]

23. They might not APPRECIATE it, but it sure would come in handy.

OOGA BOOGA yourself: Haven't heard from OMC lately. He ok?

[Dr. Strange]

24. I was wondering the same. Has anyone heard from him?

[I Have A Dream]

5. Welcome back, Tyler. n/t

[SmokingJacket]

7. I listened!

And you're right, it is why some people are a little lacking in sympathy... still...

[Tyler Durden]

9. It's not that they lack in sympathy...

The Midwest has an odd attitude about what equals "security" when it comes to hearth and home; listen to Garrison Keillor if you doubt me. I was trying to explain that we feel TERRIBLE about the fires, we just don't understand the reason for building in those places.

Sort of like marrying the same woman over and over again KNOWING she'll get bored in a few years and leave you.

[hedgehog]

13. At the risk of introducing GD vibes to the lounge, you're absolutely right.

AS a matter of fact, I think the entire notion of federal flood insurance came from that observation. It was after a series of spectacular upper Mississippi floods. I think the feds offered people a one-time buyout with the stipulation that the land would remain undeveloped or set aside as a park, etc. I think there were several cases where entire towns were moved a couple miles. Anyone who wanted to live in a flood plain was able to buy flood insurance at a fair price. That price was high because it was based on an honest estimate of the risk. Where the deal fell apart IMO, was that the federal government left it up to the local governments to delineate the flood zones.

[ThomCat]

10. .

:hug:

[Taverner]

12. Dude, you hate us for our freedom!

;)

[SPKrazy]

14. Sorry I must have missed your departure-the sovereign nation of the lounge welcomes you back

please keep your papers in order if you are traveling to GD...

we don't want to have infiltrators in here :P

[madinmaryland]

15. I saw your thread and thought it was a really good observation.

:shrug:

Of course, anyone who posts anything that is not in total agreement tends to get burned (oops, bad analogy)

[KitchenWitch]

16. I posted in your thread over there

Sorry you got torched.

[Tyler Durden]

17. Torched? I got BARBECUED.

Accumulated 3 new members of my "IGNORE" list, and think that was being lenient.

[TK421]

31. what thread was this? do you happen to have a link?

:shrug:

[graywarrior]

18. Hey!

Glad you're here.

[Tyler Durden]

22. Thanks. LOVE the duck.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

20. i get what you mean but people are sensitive and defensive right now

maybe this discussion of whether or not to build in that area, is best left after the disaster is over.

[Tyler Durden]

21. But that wasn't my point.

My point was that the "OVER CAUTIOUS NATURE" of the Midwest leaves us sounding a lot like they do when we mention that our jobs went south, like why don't we move or something like that. I was explaining our shortcoming, and all I got back was "YEAH AND FUCK YOU TOO, ASSHOLE."

Anyone who's tried to move a household of more than 3-4 halfway across the country knows how dumb that sounds, and I've done it twice. I don't suggest that they DO that, only that we want to understand more, like why San Diego county with 10 times the area of San Francisco has 2/3 of the firemen. That's a TAX issue, and they keep blowing them off, so I'm trying to understand.

If the fires got withing a MILE of my house I'd be on the TAX ME FOR FIREMEN RIGHT FUCKING NOW!!! bandwagon.

[Dr. Strange]

25. I just found out that redqueen is a libertarian!

Thanks to a quick trip into GD.

At long last, she's been exposed! Charade you are, redqueen!

[QueenOfCalifornia]

26. You are not going to like this

I thought your thread over in the GD was just another way to tell ME how stupid you think I am for living in California. Oh, you took longer to come out and say it... but that was the intent. Your words:

Now it's your "God Given" or "Constitutional" or whatever RIGHT to build there. But folks like us in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and a slew of other states are at a loss as to why you build on railroad tracks. The train doesn't come by every day, but eventually you will have a very interesting caller at your domicile, and you won't enjoy the visit. I don't get it, and I'm a very smart guy. If you gave me a house in Southern California, I'd sell it at a loss and stay here in economically depressed Michigan.

California is the place where I was born and where I grew up. Doesn't anyone get that aspect of this? I grew up here. It is my HOME. Telling me to just move and STFU is really not all that heartwarming. We are a collection of people who live in places for a lot of reasons - mainly, we live where we grow up. Not always. We do leave and move on to other places. Few however are without geographical dangers or problems. In the middle of that thread you said "I wouldn't live in Hawaii either." Why not? Too far from where you grew up?

As for the part where you stated that we are getting government help to rebuild over and over and over. Who is this person? Because I can tell you that once you rebuild a burned out home you will not want to rebuild a second time. BTW, if someone GAVE you a house in S. Ca and you sold it... how would that constitute a "loss?"

It was another California bashing thread pure and simple - That may be why your post is not real popular except with other people who don't get why we live in such a stupid place. For the past 5 and a half days, I sat in my home with fire breathing on the east, north and south of me and watching my friends homes burn to the ground - We could not go out without masks over our noses and mouths. Everything is covered in black and grey ash. It looks like a moonscape. I find it amazing that people who live anyplace would not understand what a disaster is like and how it effects those who survive????

You said that people in NY are are a loss as to why we would live here? Really...When a good friend of mine had his home destroyed in a Hurricane in the Hamptons I did not not give him a bunch of shit because he is wealthy and built a house on the shore of an area which gets ravaged by the weather. He grew up in NY - (poor and Irish)- He wanted a place close to his FAMILY. I understood that nature is not picky about who it strikes. He lost a home and he earned every cent that went into buying it. I never considered his telling me of the loss "complaining."

The planet is a living thing and all sorts of disasters hit - ALL THE FUCKING TIME. Should people who were born in Greece or Italy and who live on the Mediterranean leave because of the earthquakes, fires and volcanos???? Just don't complain about it when a fire burns them down, right? Just do not bother you or the people in the great white north or the East coast or Barbara Bush's beautiful mind by complaining. If you think we are COMPLAINING you are wrong. We are happy to survive and we are sad when we see the loss.

That is all.

Welcome back to the Lounge.

[Tyler Durden]

30. That wasn't in the original post, I believe.

The examples I had given were of ATTITUDES. It's just the way the situation is viewed. I still feel COMPASSION, but I've lived in California. I've lived in Virginia. I've lived in Texas. I've lived in Maryland. And I have, as I described and put forward as a character defect of the Midwest (check with Garrison Keillor), an extreme over cautious nature.

I put forward the entire post as an example of Midwestern thinking when it comes to living on the fault line. Translated: we feel compassion for California, we just don't frame it well because of our cautious nature we don't understand you.

It's not that we aren't sympathetic, it's just that we are confused, and it's not your fault.

[QueenOfCalifornia]

34. The quote? It was from the original post

- I didn't take it from anyplace else.

Tyler- I knew that my comments were going to ruffle some feathers. I also feel that you are missing the point. We as humans gravitate to where we grow up.

I have lived all over the world but I keep coming back HOME. I met my husband here and he feels it is HOME. Anyone, even midwestern people - should get this...
We want to be where we feel the most at home. I was born is Los Angeles. I grew up in S. CA. I graduated from SDSU.

I wish I could say I have all sorts of friends from my childhood here.. that is not the case. My family (parents etc)? Dead and gone. But I moved back here in '87 from N. CA -
It is like some magnet pulling me back. Just like - if you were to grow up on the island of Santorini, you would know that you are on the edge of an active volcano but it is HOME.
It calls you. It is the feel, the food, the people. It is knowing all the back roads to everywhere. It is an odd comfort that I can not explain intellectually. I can only say it is a feeling. I love California. The canyons. The mountains. The ocean. I love the way the sun looks when it is 20º above the water and a yellowish glow begins. I love the moody grey blue sky in Yosemite. I love the cloudless Septembers and the green of June. I feel like I am walking through a Steinbeck novel when I drive into Monterey. I Love the little town in the central valley where my husband grew up. I love the rich Mexican heritage that is shared with us and the Spanish architecture. I love driving up to Julian on a crisp Fall day and eating a slab of Julian apple pie while watching the world pass by. I love the wine country to the north and I love driving Highway 49 through the gold rush country. California is my home. It is just as much home as where you grew up. It would be like telling a Hawaiian to leave the slopes of the volcano because it will someday erupt. We live with the obvious because we are home.

You may never understand why we stay when we are faced with fire, drought and earthquakes.

But because I live through the crap I live through... i really understand why you live in Michigan... It must feel like home to you.

[Tyler Durden]

35. And I do not begrudge you what is your home.

I merely wanted to say that we over cautious Midwesterners would die of paranoia if compelled to live there, so we don't understand you; DO NOT take this for lack of compassion. We feel for you. But sometimes the way we speak about it can be misconstrued.

I'm apologizing for that.

[LSK]

27. Call Congress RIGHT FUCKING NOW

:hi:

[petronius]

28. We Californians really don't care what a hick from fly-over country thinks about our state.

I'm kidding! I'm kidding! Welcome home...

:hi:

[Sugar Smack]

29. Oh, Tyler. You're a wonderful sight to me in both forums.

:loveya: :hi: Wonderful, and I don't mind sayin' so.

[Tyler Durden]

32. As I've said before...

You must be honey 'cause you too sweet to be sugar.

Thanks. I was rough over there. Hard to believe that sometimes we are actually on the same side!

[fishnfla]

33. Yeah dude you speak for the whole midwest

Being from green bay, I can recognize bullshit

you are it

[Tyler Durden]

36. You're getting ready to be my first "LOUNGE BASED" ignore.

Why don't you save the hostile shit for GD, cheesehead?