And the name of my first pet and my elementary school for good measure.

April 1st, 1969. Crapper. Why do you ask?

Good reminder. I am a proud Oaklander and won’t hide it, so I’ll just say again. Oakland!

Howdy neighbour. The same goes for me and many people I know in the Bayou State. The legislature especially recently makes me want to barf.

*USA

That’s depressing. Cheers.

Yeah, Colorado (along with the New England states) is one of few places in the US where rural does not necessarily mean red.

So it’s true. The USA has colonized the rest of the planet. Howdy neighbor!

I’ve lived in a few different states and I was born in a foreign country. I absolutely love Florida. South Florida is an amazing place with great weather and great people.

It all depends on the cultural lens which you use to look at it. One shopping plaza looks different to a Jew then it does to a Brazilian then it does to a Haitan. The Jew may come for the hummus lunch place and the Brazilian goes for the Brazilian nightclub. They exist in the same physical space but it’s like a parallel universe because they don’t see each other. I find this so fascinating.

When you take the time to really explore you see a massive depth of different cultures. I love living among immigrants, including many fresh people right off the boat.

Up north it simply isn’t the same. In Chicago there’s a lot of Latinos, but they’re virtually all Mexican. In South Florida you get every single type. Brazilian, Venezuelan, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Colombian, Central American… Mexicans are a minority.

I don’t know if there’s another place in the world that has such a diverse mix of people from around Latin America. So many opportunities and interesting things to do.

I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I hate the government, but I refuse to move.

Respect for staying and staying strong. That devolution has been rapid and concerning.

You sticking around encourages every person (disclosed or otherwise) in any of those groups to stay, and eventually force that SOB running your state out.

My partner is a huge Disney fan, and I see behind the magic and respect everything they do to hide the actual mechanics of it all. It pains us that we can’t get on a WN flight to MCO because we refuse to spend money (that we are aware of) in states behaving that way generally.

We miss Nashville, too, as well as a place between Nashville and Orlando that sells stuff people failed to “claim” for cheap.

But I’m not buying gas in GA or FL, much less anything else, in the current environment.

Miami once was a haven and a melting pot, and I personally welcome everyone to this country. But… current state of affairs.

I couldn’t do it, we are both straight and a conventional married couple (mosly, aside from things that are no one’s biz). We fled a Midwest state because, among other things, we got tired of defending that WE wore masks/used hand sanitizer over a period of years.

Fuck those people, we are not hurting them by vexing cautious. Turns out (it seems, per current research) we were right.

The diesel bros are slowly feeling the long term results.

I’m outside Allentown, but half my family is from up near Towanda. It is an odd state due to how we’re spread out.

We’ve got Confederate flags around here as well. Less things plastered with Trump signs lately, but the last few months I’ve seen businesses with Houck signs all over. He’s an anti abortion activist that twice assaulted a 70+ year old man that was a patient escort at a clinic.

All the people I meet from all over the state are usually very kind, but politically what many of them believe just confuses me. I just didn’t know what would ever change their voting bloc if things haven’t done so by now.

Oh, man. My condolences.

But, seriously: rural PA can be gorgeous. The issue is, as you said: the politics. When we first moved there, a new friend told me: “Pennsylvania is Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Alabama in between.”

Another replier to your comment said they lived outside Allentown - I don’t consider that “rural” PA. The suburbs in PA are vast, and while it can look rural, you don’t know PA rural until you drive to somewhere like New Berlin: through coal country. I knew people who’d grown up within 3 miles of where their grandmother grew up, lived there their entire lives, and never ventured more than a few dozen miles from the Mainline. Never visited Gettysburg, a mere 4-hour drive.

And you’re so right! The Mason-Dixon line is the Southern border of PA, and yet Confederate flags abound. That, and Trump signs; they just never take those down, campaign year or not.

We moved to Minnesota from PA (answering OP’s question) and I was surprised at the political similarities. Around The Cities it’s fairly liberal, and even through the few-hour drive to Deluth. But once you get off the main commuter thoroughfare, those Trump signs start appearing everywhere. Iron ore is to MN what is coal to PA, and mining is mining. Although, the property around the big Northern lakes is all lake-homes owned by urban families who can’t afford lake homes around The Cities, so there are pockets of Blue out there. Anyway, I found the similarities to be surreal. The biggest difference is that the PA coal country is far poorer than MN iron country.

But I’ll repeat: the countryside in PA is amazing, especially in the Poconos, but also in the farmland. Just beautiful.

And they all have cars that contribute to our THUNDERDOME traffic situation these days. I legit don’t even like driving anywhere in the metroplex these days out of safety concerns.

My company has a campus there (among several other places) and I’ve abs ruled out any chance of landing there. Not just because screw you, I am more effective WFH, not less, but because the highly vocal haters populating the area make me look like an asshole just for living there.

I’m also particularly sensitive to heat, but car ac is a thing. I just can’t justify supporting and effectively representing TX. Not a lot of good ways to state that I’m an ally of anyone misunderstood or whose rights have been trampled, while living in a state that consistently makes news for the exact opposite.

Not worried about colleagues who know me, but if I want to make a move into a new position - internal or external - and the hiring mgr or hr rep is e.g., my friend who went through NB and landed on male, whose decision I respect, how the hell can I possibly claim to support them or any other group, if I’m daily buying gas and food in TX?

Hi neighbor. I’m in Temecula.

Ahem

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Bruh I’m in Hemet, CA. All desert and tumbleweeds but hey at least I can afford to live here

Hat tip.