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...about me:
I'm a native Californian, living in the San Francisco
bay area. This is a very beautiful area, though the
people here are pretty wacko. Just look at our real
estate market - $750,000 for a 1200 square foot "fixer-upper"
house. Worse, the house will sell within a week...maybe
for a price that's higher than the original asking
price. We pay higher prices than the rest of
the nation for most everything.
It seems that most people here think that we are grossly
under-taxed, and every year, the voters approve a
new multi-billion dollar bond issue for our
schools -- to fix the same problems that last years
voter-approved multi-billion dollar bond was
supposed to fix! I'm not necessarily against all taxes,
just the corrupt, mismanagement of how the taxes are
actually spent. It's so bad that neither politicians nor government
accounting can tell how much tax money goes where.
So they just fight for more taxes when "there isn't
enough money". The people here NEVER ask where it
goes. Let's just say that the politicians friends
are getting very wealthy, while I still run over the
same pothole in the road that I have for the last
3 years, while paying over eighty cents a gallon in
gas tax that's supposed to fix the roads...And we have the "governator" aka Arnold Schwarzenegger,
running our state now. As I wrote, the place
is beautiful, the people are a little nuts.
I enjoy the redwoods (Santa Cruz mountains) and the
mountain highways for bicycling, motorcycle riding,
and for the views. I hope to start power boating in
the San Francisco Bay soon. And did I forget
to mention that the Napa/Sonoma wine country is just
over an hours drive away? I also enjoy
ghost town hunting in Nevada and exploring for other
historical sites of our past.
I am an Oracle certified database administrator,
though the tech industry is pretty tough right
now. I also run my family's real estate
business now. I maintain several websites
for family and friends businesses...I'm not a webmaster per-se, I just enjoy the creativity.
In my previous life, before breaking my back in an
accident, I worked as an union electrician, and still
enjoy working with my hands. I can appreciate the
labor that blue-collar worker do. Thank God for modern medicine
and a particularly skillful orthopedic surgeon.
I don't road-race (AFM) motorcycles anymore, but I'm
not in a wheelchair, either. I love to get out in
the forest and enjoy the scenery and the peacefulness
- by hiking, biking or riding my quads (ATV's). (Another problem
with this area is that many city-dwellers, like
those in San
Francisco, call themselves "environmentalists", yet
have never even been to the many astoundingly beautiful
redwood forests we are so fortunate to have here,
and to see for themselves what the condition of the
forest is, or what it is they are trying to actually
ban/stop/outlaw/regulate/close-off.
Ignorance is bliss?)
I enjoy cigars, and have traveled twice to Havana
to sample the best. It is the land that time forgot.
Of course in California, all "tobacco-users" are evil and
must pay 150-300% tax for tobacco - even us cigar
smokers who never inhale!
--more later --
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