California is indeed the land of fruit and nuts. 305 lives there and though rather sane, he is still influenced by his environment. He’s be a whole lot smarter were he raised in Alabama.
At any rate, California despite its political insanity is the most beautiful state. I spent five years living on the Peninsula south of San Francisco, and I think the scenic drive along the Pacific Coast from Carmel south rivals in beauty any place I’ve ever been even the famed Costa Brava in Spain north of Barcelona or the great train ride across the Andes from Santiago de Chile to Mendoza in Argentina.
Circuitously I arrive at the topic. I love vintage Mercedes motor cars. One of my professors, a Spaniard, once a bull fighter, drove a 1962 Mercedes 200 Cabriolet convertible. It was a stunning vehicle. I tried to buy one last year, but the price of $100,000 was more than I was willing to shell out.
Here’s a great article about vintage Mercedes and the mania for same occurring in the Great State of California. The old ones are preferable to the new ones. It’s a great read.
The California coast is beautiful. I just took a road trip up to Cambria and then Monterey/Carmel before hitting San Francisco where you would be mortified to hear I didn’t see any human feces. Downtown Carmel is very quaint and my wife and I discussed moving there. Driving through Pebble Beach was a treat.
When I was a kid, we went to the beach at Half Moon Bay. At that time, the only thing there was a salt water swimming pool and a fishing pier. Today, I hardly recognize the place. We also used to swim in the Bay at Coyote Point and catch lots of Rock Cod off the nearby rocks. I went to an outstanding school in California, and I revere the memories of several of my teachers.
Carmel is beautiful, and I’d live there too were it not for California taxes. Even my billionaire cousin left California and now lives in Boca. When I go to California, I stay at my high school classmate Dan’s place smack on the Pebble Beach Golf Course. Dan grew up poor, earned an accounting degree from Stetson under their formidable Professor Bates, became the head of the Houston IRS office, then moved to Red Wood City where he opened a private accounting office. Soon, the egg heads were piling into Dan’s office asking him to set up their corporations to be publicly traded. They had no money but paid Dan in shares of their stock. The stock made Dan a billionaire, and his wife, also an accountant, became the highest paid woman working for Price Waterhouse Coopers and served on their Board of Directors. In high school, Dan had to look over my shoulder in high school Calculus class. We both made A’s in the subject.
I have lived in Philadelphia, Albuquerque, San Mateo, CA, Ft. Lauderdale, Highlands, NC, Boca Raton, Pensacola, Gulf Breeze, Pensacola Beach, Hurricane Landing, AL, Campagne sur Aude, Moscow, Rostov on Don. I have spent summer months in Varna, Bulgaria, Guayaquil, Ecuador, Chilpanzingo and San Miguel de Allende,Mex, Yalta, Crimea, Paris, Vittel, France, Fort de France, Guadaloupe, Agadir, Morocco, Marbella and Sitges, Spain, Winterberg, Germany. At one time or another, I’ve traveled to or through every Latin American nation save for the Guianas. I’ve gone to a host of international conferences accompanying my late wife who was a professor, UN translator, and Naval Intelligence resource person. As a guest of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, I traveled free of charge throughout the Soviet Union and its republics. I’ve traveled very little in Africa and have never been to the Far East, Australia, New Zealand, India or Pakistan.
305, I knew there was a reason for your partial sanity which I attribute to growing up in Miami. That you remain loyal to the Hurricanes is also on the positive side of the ledger.
With respect to Ukraine, what you are missing is that it is more than a war between nations, but a macroeconomic disaster wherein there is shifting of economic might to Asia. As winter descends on Europe, the attendant suffering from a dearth of energy should produce a stunning victory for Russia and a helluva lot of damage in relations between the U.S. and other NATO members.