How is Cali?

This question is the opening phrase of anyone I speak to. It is a good question. It is a question that can lead any conversation. This is like asking how is the world? How is Canada? Since I have been here for a total of 54 days I suppose it is time to answer. This will probably be done in parts though because there is too much to answer, plus I am tired but still wanted to write something on here. Sunday night has become a great time to reflect on the past week and prepare for whatever is coming at me next week. I would add some new pictures here or my picasa album, except I stupidly stuck my USB cable into a returned MP3 player package.

I want to start out with a few quotes I found that I feel are relevant to California:

“The California crunch really is the result of not enough power-generating plants and then not enough power to power the power of generating plants.”

George W. Bush quotes (American 43rd US President since 2001. b.1946)

“California is where you can't run any farther without getting wet.”

Neil Morgan quotes

“My fellow Americans, this is an amazing moment for me. To think that a once scrawny boy from Austria could grow up to become Governor of California and stand in Madison Square Garden to speak on behalf of the President of the United States that is an immigrant's dream. It is the American dream.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger quotes (Austrian born American Actor and Governor, b.1947 “It's a scientific fact that if you stay in California you lose one point of your IQ every year” Truman Capote quotes (American short-story Writer, Novelist and Playwright, 1924-1984) “Whatever starts in California unfortunately has an inclination to spread.” Jimmy Carter quotes (American 39th US President (1977-81). Nobel Prize for Peace in 2002. b.1924)

So that about sums it up. California is an over populated, culturally diverse to the extreme, fully 'americanized', area of land that is unfortunately stuck on a huge fault line at the edge of the continent. Click here for picture. (not sure if i'm allowed to actually post the picture on here because of copyright, but it wouldn't make sense if i did want to post a copyrighted picture or image i should be able to because this blog actually isn't officially MINE anyway, it is actually property of google, so maybe they would have to accept the lawsuit? I don't think i used my own name to sign up for this anyway. Anyone know anything about this?)


Seriously though, today I was walking back from target with my pay as you go phone and a 6 pack of beer enjoying the 75 degree weather and thinking to myself.

Eric, you are in a good situation right now. The world is falling to pieces as we speak. People everywhere are losing their jobs. No one is sure about their future. Familys are losing their houses they've worked hard to get or losing money on them if they bought recently. Prices of everything are getting higher and higher while most people are relatively making less money than inflation says they should be making.

Appreciate, be entertained, be fond of, be pleased, cotton to, delight in, dig*, dote on*, drink in, eat up*, fancy, flip over, freak out on, get a charge out of, get a kick out of*, get high on, go, have a ball*, have a good time, have fun, like, live a little, live it up, love, luxuriate in, mind, paint the town, rejoice in, relish, revel in, savor, take joy in, thrill to the situation you are in.

So after talking myself through this I started getting pretty excited about what California has to offer and am now looking forward to enjoying what I can. I haven't been paitent so far, I wanted everything to be enjoyable and fun right away. How can a person do that without ever have seen the place or know what it has to offer? The answer is...it doesn't matter. I can do the exact things I enjoyed doing back in Canada.

I could spend my bonus's in one day and have everything i need to be happy with for years to come. All I need is a cross-country mountain bike, the gear for that, a surf board, dry suit, snowboard, snowboard gear, camping gear, and a SUV or truck. Then i kicked myself in the ass and smacked myself across the face. Who am i kidding? Nothing is permanent. I am sitting in a good position to take this money and have a great start for a house down payment. It is still possible they will lay me off and send me right back where i came from. On the otherhand, who would want to get rid of a classy guy such as myself. I need to enjoy myself down here.

This is getting long...got long...is long. Point being, if I didn't want to think about things and just make sure I enjoyed myself and everything California has to offer I could next week have everything I need in order to do that. This is still life though, it still involves risks, consequences, options, challenges, risks, and VIDEO GAMES. For now, the last option has been doing just fine until i get everything figured out. When the time comes i'll meet people, surf, mountain bike, see San Francisco, and go to Lake Tahoe. So how is Cali? so far...not too bad. Goodnight. I will probably be posting again sometime mid-week. Next Sunday i'll be prepping in Seattle for the Metallica concert. You probably don't want to read what i'd write while i'm prepping for that.

There is science, logic, reason; there is thought verified by experience. And then there is California.
Edward Abbey