Relocating

I've moved around a lot.

Every two years from 1979 to 1991.

Most times a new state.

I lived second longest in Ames, Iowa.  I liked Ames a lot.  That was '81-'83, '85-'87, '90-97.  I was born in Iowa.  I have aunts, uncles and cousins there.

Iowa is an odd place.  It's what I call conservaliberal.  They tend to mix the extremes of both parties in the day-to-day politics.

Ames, on the other hand, is very liberal.  I guess it goes with having a land-grant university in town.  The creeping nannyism coupled with the lack of real jobs drove me out.

I scoped around for a new place to live once I had been talked out of killing myself.

I settled on Florida.

Not once have I ever attempted to make Florida into Iowa.  I figure there are reasons I don't live in Iowa, so why try to bring those reasons here?

I wish that people from New Jersey, New York, Illinois and Massachusetts had the same consideration.  They all move here and all you hear about is how great "back home" was and how things should be that way here.  I always ask, "then why did you come here if back there was so damn great?"

"Huh?" they always say.

Then they start talking about all the things that are fucked-up "back-home".  So then I ask, "ever consider that some of those things are intertwined and you can't get one without the other?"

"Huh?"

Then we talk about how linked a lot of the good things are with the bad things.  It's quite surprising in some ways.  What really knocks many of them for a loop is how many of the "good" things are not really good when you really look at them closely.

I think I am making progress.

PS: People from NJ, NY, IL or MA: if you want to impress me with "you've nevers" you'll have had to have killed someone.  Except that I have (thanks US Army!).  Merely living in a large city will not impress me, because I lived for a while in Chicago.