I just eliminated ten cold places, but that still leaves lots of places that are too cold for me. I think I might choose unemployment before I would move north of, say, the 35th parallel. Or inland.
I don’t care who my neighbors vote for, and Trump won’t be around long enough to affect major life decisions like moving far away.
I eliminated “the south” as much as I could. I swore my last visit to “the south” would be my last. Too much open, blatant racism. In reality, states like North Dakota would also be eliminated as well as any state without at least a medical marijuana program. Really I’m happy in western Pennsylvania.
Yeah, not going south, for both political and climate reasons. If I’m going in any direction it’s going to be north and/or west. I’d go to New England. Pacific northwest maybe.
I’d probably have to eliminate the hottest places that are also strongly Trumpist. Cold I can deal with.
Haven’t voted yet, though, and might not; because while a couple of places that have been in the news a lot are obvious, some of the others I’d have to research, and if I’m going to do research that’ll take more than five minutes I really should be researching something other than a random poll.
Not attracted to flat states or most of the south. I did not select Georgia or even Texas - I could make a go of it in those states based on climate or scenery.
I dropped Florida and Texas immediately. I’ve lived in one of them and I ain’t going back, and they both suck for a multitude of reasons. After those, it was just figuring out which were second worst.
I did keep some red states, obviously, and gave them some thought. Wyoming for example, I like Wyoming. Yes, the politics suck, but it’s a lovely state.
Well, the only state with a lower population density is Alaska, so even though you’re surrounded by shitheads, at least they’re theoretically far away.
In the veto states poll, I eliminated most of the south, and especially Florida due to the overlapping factors of Too Hot, Too Humid, and Too Trump-y. I figure I might have to compromise on one, possibly two of the issues, but all three means I’d rather look for a different job.
I really strongly considered vetoing Texas, but I do have a lot of family and friends living there (in Austin and Dallas), so I put it a category of not being wanted, but not so bad as to blow a veto on, which is true of many of the metropolitan areas of the South. But that still leaves the hot and humid - not enough climate control in the world.
Now, if I was only allowed to veto one state, it would be Florida, because it’s hot, humid, Trumpy, fallen into fascism, AND apparently pissed off God enough to be at risk of destruction several times a year!
Same. I could have picked a few more cold states. I did pick NY because although the southern part has had mild winters lately I don’t want to chance being near lake effect snow. It’s a big state.
I’ve been escorted out of an establishment, but it’s not my fault, I swear.
You see a few years before The Coat of Arms in Portsmouth, New Hampshire closed for good, I met a group of friends from work there. We’d been there before, and went back later, so it’s not as if we got banned…
Anyway, one of my friends had a college friend visiting, and she wasn’t American, and she forgot her passport where she was staying 20 miles away. No worries, we thought, because she had her license. The waiter told her to everyone’s surprise that they couldn’t serve her on the basis of a foreign license. We were all in our 20s, so we knew trying to convince the waiter she was over 21 would be a futile effort, so she was left sad and drinkless after our orders were taken.
“Not to worry,” said a genius friend in hearing of the waiter. “I’ll just order drinks for you.”
…and that’s when we were all led out of the pub and instructed not to return without her passport in hand. We found a less picky sports bar somewhere else.
This. Also a lot of those are unfriendly to my friends and family. I have many gay and trans friends. And my son is unwilling to visit any state where he might theoretically be prosecuted for helping his then-fiance to abort their ectopic pregnancy.
I am of two minds in this regard.
As a white middle-aged middle-class heterosexual cisgendered male, my everyday life is not really affected by horrible politics. But unlike some people, I am concerned about people who are not me.
So do I want to live in a liberal bubble, or can I stomach going someplace where I can at least vote against the monsters, and try to be one voice gently influencing my neighbors toward acceptance and kindness?
I hear yuh, but for me its more like I see someone drowning in a pool. Better to pull them out than jump in with them and maybe drown, too. Your one voice gently influencing won’t move anyone who refuses to listen, and that’s most of them.
In the no longer welcome poll I checked off Encouraged. When I was in the navy in Winter Harbor I and four buddies drove the 50-odd miles to Bangor and the harness racing track there for an evening of racing excitement. We all won money so were in a pretty good mood when we left the track about 10pm but then we noticed the headlights were growing ever dimmer as we went along.
Turned out the guy whose car it was had jump-started it a couple days before then charged the battery with a portable charger once he got home. He had blown the bridge rectifier though, so the alternator was no longer working but had only driven it the few miles to work in daylight a couple times not draining the battery much. The 50-watt headlights were a different story.
We made it to Ellsworth, the halfway point, and there was nothing but dark from there to Winter Harbor so we stopped there, abandoning the car at a closed mechanic. One of the guys was married with a wife and auto at home so she was the one called and talked into coming out to rescue us, but where to meet?
There was a bar and a Dunkin’ Donuts within easy reach but none of us were big on drinking (astonishing, I know) so DD it was. We walk in, order donuts and coffee, and are enjoying them for a while, then 11:30 rolls around and the workers start stacking chairs on tables, sweeping, and looking at us real pointedly. This was 45 years ago and at that time we’d never heard of Dunkin’ Donuts being anything but 24-hours, but we’d found one.
This was also wa-a-ay before cell phones so we had no way of telling our rescuer about a change of plans. We wound up standing under the Dunkin’ Donuts sign on a crisp fall night grumbling at the guy who’d insisted on using his car.