Posted on 08/22/2005 9:54:18 PM PDT by txrangerette
"Here are today's Best Places to Live, as presented in the book, "Cities Ranked and Rated", by Bert Sperling and Peter Sander, published by John Wiley.
Here are Sperling and Sander's top picks for livability:
Charlottesville, Virginia ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... Corvalis, Oregon"
(Excerpt) Read more at houseandhome.msn.com ...
Not unusual here to see vehicles idling in the winter either, with no one around. (they went inside to eat/shop/get the mail/whatever..)
Never been there, but I'll keep it in mind. I've heard some mixed reviews about the place. While there are some excellent restaurants in Los Angeles, there are damn few relative to its population. However, the Vietnamese food in Orange County is second-to-none outside of Viet Nam itself, and only Santa Clara county comes in a distant second. The 'Vietnamese' food in most other cities (e.g. Manhattan) is bizarre Chinese knock-off wannabe that is about as distant from the real thing as Taco Bell is from genuine southwestern cuisine.
If LA has a true claim to fame in food, it would have to be the Vietnamese food, plus a few top-end restaurants around Beverly Hills.
Yep, you 'get' it!
With a grandfather like you, your grandchildren have it VERY GOOD! Acres and acres of woods and two farms, and a river to play in? You had it good too. :)
13,000 pop. sounds like a lot of folks to me, but I'm not your average "joe". har har Our area has about 1,500 folks and the nearest city (Fairbanks) is a 4 hour drive from here. Anchorage is about 6 hours. More depending on the weather and road conditions.
The Alaska range is our backyard, and the Wrangells are just a few miles farther south. An old sled-dog trail runs past my kitchen window and I can hop on my four-wheeler, or snowmachine, and literally lose myself in God's country. Seriously, I could lose myself. Hubby points that out to me occasionally.
We built our log home from the ground up....just hubby and I, and our two sons. Both are now grown. One enlisted in the Army, served in Iraq, the other is a foreman for a construction company.
Sometimes I feel bad for people who don't know what it's like to live a simpler life. Ahhh, but it doesn't matter really, does it? God love ya, Smokin' Joe, for taking care of those grandbabies. :)
It is funny you should say that. When they came to live with us, I had no idea how we were going to make ends meet. I prayed, God provides. And I cannot begin to say how much richer I am to have them around.
Musso & Frank is mostly for literally history. Fitzgerald drank there, so did a bunch of others. I'm a sucker for the L.A. freak show -- The Ivy, Venice Beach, odd parties in Hollywood Hills homes.
LOL! Hi durasell! If you promise you can keep me from freaking out, maybe I'll try NYC some day. Actually, my husband's brother lives out there. Not in NYC, but close. He actually helped out after 9/11. So it's "very quiet" and "not much to do". Heck, that sounds like my place! If I ever went to NYC, I'd want to go see the sights. It sounds like such a scarey place (from my perspective) but maybe someday we'll make the trip and take it all in. I may not be able to survive NY, but I could die trying. :)
You're right....it was Bobby Beeper.
and I'm glad to have been wrong.
While San Francisco's food scene is unambiguously excellent, in some ways I prefer the particular food mix that is Manhattan. Fortunately, I am in Manhattan semi-regularly, which suffices I suppose. :-)
I've been to Minot. Took our sons on the Amtrak one year back when they were little boofers. I believe we had a stop in Minot. You get some mighty cold winter too.
We prefer home cooking too. Our sons were raised on homemade bread, moose & caribou meat, so many homemade cookies I get tired just thinking about all that cooking.
You tell your wife to hold onto that 78 Lincoln. I can tell just by "listening" to you, that she is a good woman. What a lucky man you are. I tell my husband that ALL the time. LOL
It's not what people think it is -- mostly it's about work. The city doesn't overwhelm because it's a collection of neighborhoods. Typically, you know the dry cleaner, the subway station guy and the supermarket people either by name or by sight. The major difference is the fact that for most New Yorkers the home isn't the focal point of their social life. They live a good portion of their lives in public. This is true for those with giant apartments as well as those with tiny studio apts.
In my experience, rural people are freaked out by the number of "strangers" they encounter in NYC. It will either cause unease or re-affirm faith in humankind that so many different kinds of people can live together without going at each other's throats more often.
And I agree with yours as well. One of our sons, who was raised in the bush, joined the Army and ended up stationed in Germany. He actually grew to love the choices that city life held for him. He traveled and saw the most amazing places. I knew when he returned that he'd want to live in or near a city. He still longs for the wilderness lifestyle, but also wants to be near all the "happening things". LOL He and his wife will find their zone, just as we all do.
Sometimes I think it'd be nice to be closer to town, but whenever we go there for supplies, we can't wait to leave it all behind. Guess I just wasn't made for city life. And so it goes..... :)
Heh. I've actually lived there off and on as a very highly paid consultant to major movie studios among other things. Given the choice, I would much rather live in San Diego if I was stuck in southern California. Better weather, much better beaches, and overall a much nicer city (but lacking a food scene). Los Angeles does have that odd freak show thing going on, but it is a pretty thin veneer on a sad city. San Diego does have a sheen of class, almost to the point of caricature, but it is more than skin deep. Beverly Hills 90210 would have been far more plausible in San Diego than in Los Angeles, having lived in both places for a few years.
I don't know it, but that doesn't mean anything.
Blackberries are ripe now in my rural peaceful home.
Great for the New York Steak Demi Glace
Dressing for goat cheese, pecan leafy green salad
or
on top of the whole wheat english muffin with cream cheese.
We live out a few miles (in an unpopulated area mainly because of terrain and lack of water for homes to build) from the closest town which Newport and Newport is the Beach Town 90 min West of Corvallis which is Number 10 on the list.
I like you love my quiet forrest/bay lifestyle.
Nothing beats bunnies, deer, birds ect. and the not living by a clock.
Where the word "need" is not used often. And time is not what is on the wall.
Ahhh, the handiwork of God. Isn't it a beautiful thing? God bless you and your wife, and your grandchildren. Just breathe....pray......and laugh ALOT!
Now that makes sense to me. Basically what you are saying is that within the city, there are small neighborhoods where people actually know each other and perhaps, look out for each other?
Yes, I think you hit it on the head about the major difference. I do not need alot of social events in my life to make me happy and fulfilled. City people either need, or choose to make social activities the center of their lives, rather than the "rim" around their life.
I also think you're right about how rural people feel. When we had to fly into Denver a few years ago, I had what could only be described as a "panic attack" as people were pushing and shoving me into one of those underground, train things. Not a subway, but....you know. A train thing. LOL My youngest son, grabbed my hand and asked me, "are you o.k.???", I said, "hell no". GET ME OUTTA HERE. LOL It was such a crowd, and everyone was just so rude. I tried to stand back to let an elderly woman pass me and another fellow rammed that woman so hard I thought she was going to fall down.
I spent the next couple of hours huddled in the backseat of our rental car as people were driving like maniacs, 70 MPH, bumpers to tailgates on our way to Aspen. I swear, that's when the grey hair popped out on my head. LOL
One of my favorite hotels is the del. Terrific building and grounds and history.
The thing I like about L.A. is the fact that people seem to go there in search of luck. There's a child like innocence in that -- but then they turn feral and start snarling, back to the ocean, capped teeth bared, just before moving out to the Valley and mellowing out a slow burn of bitterness.
She never tells me that though, just gets this all-knowing smirk....(8^D)
Not any Caribou here, and moose are rare.
A cousin of my wife's hit one with her car a couple of years ago (totalled the car, they butchered the moose) and we were supposed to get a little of that, but it didn't happen (must be good eating!).
I have not had much time to hunt the last few years, but white tailed deer has been an occasional meal, every now and then some buffalo, and the local beef and pork are really good.
The first thing the 'baby' (now 5--almost 6!) ever asked for by name was a cookie...I still can see those big eyes looking waaaay up there at me as she mustered up a really deep voice and said COOOOO-KIE. She was barely a year old....
We're a lot of people packed on a very small island, most people recognize the need to help each other and make accomodations.
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