After leaving the 2008 GRM UTCC, I drove to LAX to fly home. Near the airport, a mini-pickup (with wood flatbed) was driving after dark with no lights on. A police car immediately turned on its lights, and the pickup (with three passengers, none of whom appeared to be fluent in English) drove across all five lanes, into oncoming traffic, and pulled over at the far curb.
Snowdoggie wrote: Don't even get me started about housing prices in California. The Central Valley isn't Malibu or Marin County. Why are prices so high in places like Sacramento, Stockton and Fresno where you are such a long way from the ocean?
I wish I knew. When I look at houses here in Fresno, I see little worth buying up to the $200K range. Yet in Bend, OR, I found a nice ranch house on 1/3-acre for that price.
California=fail.
JetMech wrote:Snowdoggie wrote: Don't even get me started about housing prices in California. The Central Valley isn't Malibu or Marin County. Why are prices so high in places like Sacramento, Stockton and Fresno where you are such a long way from the ocean?I wish I knew. When I look at houses here in Fresno, I see little worth buying up to the $200K range. Yet in Bend, OR, I found a nice ranch house on 1/3-acre for that price. California=fail.
You guys should have seen gainesville's housing market 1.5-2 years ago, 1000-1500 sq ft of home, was right at 200k, REDICULOUS! this is Gainesville people, not california, not a major metropolis, but GAINESVILLE! BAH this whole town is Gator crazy, I mean the let kids out of school for the homecoming parade. Housing prices haven't really gotten better with the crunch either, they've come down some, but not enough.
wow a whole house for 200k! Thats cheap we had trailers in trailerparks going for more than that not too long ago.
Well, the 1700 sq ft house we bought a couple of years ago was close to $300K here in SE Portland. However, unlike other houses in the area, ours hasn't lost a bunch of value.
The fact that it has 4 bedrooms and 3 full baths didn't hurt in the value. For me the 2-car garage was all I needed to see (coming from a rented garage at my apartment complex was a huge upgrade, IMHO)
My better half's parents live in Modesto, CA (not far from Sac-town) and every time I visit them, I wonder why anyone would live in those E36 M3-holes (Stockton/Modesto/Sacramento) The sheer number of strip malls and cookie cutter housing developments with all of the BS one upmanship just rubs me the wrong way. The houses are built using the same HomeDepot E36 M3 that they used in my house and because it is slightly bigger, they get 500K for it? WTF? Oh and the plot of land around the house isn't any bigger than the one around my house.
Capt Slow wrote: The only real problem happens on Sunday when all the flatlanders (like Salanis) come up to the local wineries and freak out when they see a strange and terrifying thing called a "corner"
Hmmm that sorta sounds like Ohioans
We have plenty of road courses in Dallas. Texas Motorsports Ranch and Eagles Canyon are both on the outskirts of the DFW Metroplex. Texas Motor Speedway has a road course too that incorporates the oval. That makes three places to road race nearby. A few hours south is Texas Motorsports Ranch Houston and a few hours North is Hallet. I heard there is a track down in Austin too but I have never been there.
Since I joined the jeep club, I found out that there are about three or four good off road parks within a two hour drive of Dallas including Gilmer, Barnwell Mountain and Bridgeport. Superlift ATV park in Hot Springs is about five hours away. Hey, Moab is about 16 hours from here. That's the daddy of them all.
There are about four or five drag strips here two including Ennis where they have National Events.
Dallas is a Motorsports Mecca.
Yeah, but it is still Dallas. Just sayin!
fiat22turbo wrote: My better half's parents live in Modesto, CA (not far from Sac-town) and every time I visit them, I wonder why anyone would live in those E36 M3-holes (Stockton/Modesto/Sacramento).
I've wondered the same thing many a time. Merced (about half an hour south of Modesto on Highway 99) is even worse. And don't get me started on Chowchilla...
I'll take North Carolina. Despite my last post (about it filling up too quickly), I really love it here. I'll find me some place where it isn't filling up and settle down for the rest of my life. Car-wise (including motorsports, and not just stock car racing), it's a mecca. Then you've got the food, the weather, the people, the beautiful mountains and beaches...
Here in the Atl suburbs (Cobb county) they are redoing a lot of the roads and taking most of the curve out of them. Some times they even widen them so there is less congestion on them. Then they will miss time the lights so there is NO way you can drive with out stopping at all the lights, unless you run them of course (thats what too many people are doing in their SUV's) Of course when you make driving easier then more peolpe move here and the process starts all over again. 
I get to say this as I have lived here for 30 years. 
JetMech wrote: California=fail.
Then shut up and leave already. I like living here, but I know its not for everyone. If it's not working for you, find something better and quit whining.
Ah, the midwest.
3-car, just a hair under 2K sq feet, new home, 180K. Controlled growth to the piont that even in the crunch, they are still building (which isn't great) and the schools are still hiring.
The only downside if that it is flat. But the food makes up for it, and I can be in Snowdoggie's motorsports mecca in 2 hours.
A big rig took a 200 ft dive off the SF bay bridge down to an island this morning after blowing through a temporary s-curve. RIP driver & a load of pears.
On saturday, I got a road ragging civic off my tail by pretending to eyeball his plate and calling CHP. Once I put the phone up to my ear, he dropped way back. I need to clean my windows & start wearing my glasses. I could barely tell what color it was. T-top wind would have made the call pointless anyway.
CA drivers are special.
Salanis wrote: Having two world class racetracks close enough to drive to an event morning-of is awesome. I can't think of any other decent city so conveniently situated for playing with cars. Discourages me from moving.
Agreed - there has to be some compensation for living in Scranton, PA:
Detroit area has it's good and bad points. Cheap housing and land right now. Waterford Hills, MIS, 2 dragstrips, 3 ovals, adn 3 hours to Grattan or Gingerman. Mid-ohio, Putman, chicago all with 4-5 hours.
Then again we have no jobs, (more time for wrenching and racing, right?) and lots of snow, cold, and rust.
Periodically I get sick of the weather in Vermont and toy with the idea of moving. Then I usually end having to visit a place like Boston or NYC. I then come back to reality and realize despite some crappy weather, Vermont is a pretty cool place to live. I don't know how some people live through hour(+) long commutes in bumper to bumper traffic.
Type Q wrote:JetMech wrote: California=fail.Then shut up and leave already. I like living here, but I know its not for everyone. If it's not working for you, find something better and quit whining.
I have plans to do just that. California does have its good points, but it's just getting too expensive to live here.
Suddenly Wisconsin doesnt seem so boring
I love Sconsin. I actually plan on being a snowbird and living near Elkhart Lake in the Spring Summer and Fall, and returning to FLA for the winter.
Once I make my millions of course
914Driver wrote:oldsaw wrote: Stay away from Atlanta, too. The city that is "too busy to hate" is full of people "too stupid to drive".I had to go through a coupla major intersections there, I don't recall the street names. The only way to make progress is to run a red light. When the other direction has the green, they park side by side blocking the intersection, oops, it's red, but I'm already here. WTF? I get the green but faced with a small parking lot. It's red, I go. Rediculous.
Probably at least one of them was named Peachtree.
You'll need to log in to post.
