Back to the radio conversation. The listener that emailed in basically was saying that the bay area sucks because there are too many stupid people (retards) living here. She specifically cited Berkeley and all the tree huggers that are protesting UC Berkeley's plans to build a new sports facility where some trees currently stand by living in the trees. While I would agree that the protesters are acting pretty stupid, I don't agree with the generalization that the bay area is full of stupid people. First off, we're talking about Berkeley. The entire city is full of wanna be hippies. To take Berkeley as a representation for the entire bay area is to select from a very skewed sample. Most of the fools that you see in Berkeley trying to be cool and save the earth, since it's the cool thing to do these days, aren't from the bay area at all. It's is my experience that 75% of the people that live in the bay area were not born here and are fairly recent transplants to the area. The Dot Com boom of the early to mid 90's is what brought the majority of the people to the bay area. So not only was the listener using a bad sample to choose from, she was basing her judgement solely on stupid people. There are many other factors that need to be taken into account before passing such a harsh judgement. And here is a little piece of information that you may have not known... There are stupid people EVERYWHERE!

#1. It's California! I don't think many people can argue that California is the best state in the union. Yeah, we like to take actors and make them into our state's governers.  We use too much energy. We run out of water. We pollute the air only to overreact to try to clean it up. But it's still the greatest state. Ask Arnold. 

#2. The SF Bay Area has the most tech jobs. This is becoming less and less relevant everyday but the fact still remains. With the boom of the silicon valley in the 80s and the Dot Com explosion of the mid 90s, the bay area became the center for tech jobs. If you are in a tech industry, most likely you will find an opportunity to work here.

#3. The bay area has the best climate. I would not count the city of San Francisco into this point because the weather there is greatly different from the east and south bay. We never get snow (which I could never deal with) and the summers are warm but rarely are they Southern California heat wave warm. 

#4. It's like L.A. without the attitude. Most people would say, "I would rather live in L.A. where all the action is then be in San Francisco." To those people I say, enjoy L.A.. I hate L.A.. If we go with the thinking of the listener on the radio, there are definitely more stupid people in L.A. just by the sheer population numbers. If you take the SF bay area and multiply it by 3 you get L.A. and you also are multiplying the stupid people thereby making 3 times as many "retards". But the thing that ticks me off the most about L.A. is the attitude that many people have. I could be totally wrong about this but I have visited the L.A. area enough times that I have come to this conclusion of the L.A. perspective: "If you don't drive a BMW and have a girl friend with big fake boobies, you're a loser!" It seems as though image is more important in L.A. than reality. People don't see you for who you are but rather see you for what they think you are from your outward appearance. Don't get me wrong, we have plenty of BMWs with silicone boobies in the passenger seat in the bay but they are fewer and far between. 

#5. The Coptic Community. This really only applies to Copts like me. But I can't imagine living in a place where there isn't a Coptic church fairly close by. The Coptic community is so tightly knit together that they become one big family. For me, living in a place without a Coptic church would be like most people leaving all their friends and family to live in Siberia. It's just not going to happen for me. 

#6. The professional sports. You might be saying, what the heck does pro sports have to do with any of this. Well let me explain. I am a die hard Warriors fan and I am not the only one. There are tons of Warriors fans that have been Warriors fans for ages. Why is that important? The Warriors were in a playoff drought that lasted 13 years! 13 freaking years! To remain loyal to a team that consistently loses for that long is amazing. How many die hard Clipper fans are there in L.A. not including Billy Crystal? I used to go to games during the playoff drought and the place would still be rockin' even though the fans knew they were most likely going to leave disappointed. When the Warriors started to make their playoff push in the spring of 2007, the Warriors fans came out with the "We Believe" movement. The Oracle Arena was rocking louder than any other NBA stadium I had ever seen or heard. And it's not limited to the Warriors. The Raiders and Niners are the same way. Everyone knows that Raiders fans are bonkers. What fans in the world would have their team move to another city and then invite them back with open arms? That's like a girlfriend that leaves you for one of your friends and lives with him 8 years or so and then she comes back to you and you end up marrying her. Niners fans, on the other hand, tend to be more of the wine and cheese crowd (BMWs and silicone) but they are still pretty loyal. I don't know much about baseball (Because I don't think it's a sport. It's just a game in my world.) but I hear that A's and Giants fans are much the same. So what's the point of this rant? It goes to show you what kind of people the bay area has. They are loyal to the bone. 

I could go on and on about why I think the bay area is the best place to live but it's not all roses and puppies. There are plenty of bad things about the bay area too. I would be a hypocrite if I didn't at least mention some of the drawbacks.

#1. It's freaking expensive! My wife and I bought a house last summer. It's a townhouse in a nice area. It's not too big and not too small. It's nice. It cost a small fortune. That's pretty normal in the bay area though. I won't go into how the housing market died just after we bought the house and how the value has dropped more than 10% since we moved in but I am sure it will rebound eventually..... gulp. My wife's sister lives in Raliegh, NC and when we went to visit her, she was trying to convince us to move out there. She showed us some homes and it kinda ticked me off. For the price we paid for our townhouse, we could have got a house in NC that I would not be surprised to see on MTV Cribs. I have to say, that it actually got me thinking about leaving the bay area. 

#2. There is more competition for jobs.  Since this is the tech hub, all the techies are congregated in this area. You will find more computer nerds here than any place on earth, outside of India. But as the economy goes bad and jobs become more scarce, all these nerds start competing for the same jobs. 

#3. Traffic. While it isn't nearly as bad as Southern California, the bay area has bad traffic. At least we have a better public transportation system then So. Cal. 

#4. The Homosexual Stigma. This is a minor quibble but worth mentioning. San Francisco has more than it's fair share of homosexuals and that's fine. I won't judge them for their "lifestyle". It's their CHOICE to live that way. But what really bugs me is when I tell someone from out of town that I am from San Francisco, (which technically, I am from San Jose) they automatically say, "Isn't that were all the gay people are?" or make some insinuation that I am perhaps gay as well. If I said I was from Hollywood, would that make me an actor? Or if I was from Texas, would that make me a cowboy? Seriously, is everyone that ignorant? The last time I was in Hollywood, I saw 10 times the amount of openly gay people that I have ever seen in the Castro district of San Francisco. It kinda bugs me when the first thing that people think about when they hear San Francisco is gay people. Thanks Gavin Newsom for supporting gay marriage making this situation even worse. 

If I weigh the good vs. the bad, the good always seems to come out on top. I may not stay in the bay area my entire life. In fact there is a good chance that someday I will leave but I'll only leave if I can find a place that offers me most of the things that I value here. No matter what happens, the SF bay area will always be home.