Oh, hell, I figure pretty much wherever you live in the US it’s pretty cool. Got that functioning government, reasonably low tax bite (you don’t like what you pay, move to Denmark or Belgium), wide range of services, things to see and do (OK, maybe you gotta look for them, but they’re there)…and besides (rant) If you don’t like it where you are, go back where you came from! I guarantee that anyone who tries to make friends in Kansas City will not find it hard to do. You want high cult, join the Nelson, the Symphony, the Lyric Opera, and the Theater League, amd you’ll have friends out the butt. You want lower-level friends, go to Charlie Hooper’s on game night or join a beer-league softball team. Or join a hunting club or a jogging club or a cycling club or just go play a few rounds of golf. Or your local church. Or shoote the breeze with your neighbors over the back fence. Not that hard to do. Suddenly, you have instant friends. Just don’t tell them how cool it was back in LA while you’re water-skiing on Lake of the Ozarks.
I’m a New Yorker, having been born there, but now I live in Colorado and I do love it here. The only thing that bothers me is that people here don’t like Texans or Californians. They detest them. I am fortunate not to be hated like they are. Even though I am a New Yorker, go figure, most people are afraid of NY, but not here. My point is that people have bumper stickers on their cars saying “Native” in the same style of the license plates. Who cares. I would venture to say that 75% of Coloradans are NOT from here originally. Great state though. Just don’t like out of town transplants.
“The idea of a walk-in closet sounds frightening. If I’m ever sittin’ at home and a closet walks in, I’m gettin’ outta there.” ~George Carlin
jab1,
The last few days have been great! Not enough to put on the Gore-Tex, but I wore it anyway. Nice and cool, with a little breeze… and RAIN! 
yosemitebabe,
Yeah, the license plate will be the first thing to go. I have an uncle in Oregon who hates Californians. I point out to him that he moved there from San Diego. Heh heh. I’m trying to get my company to let me relocate to Bothel. The idea is that I’ll keep doing the same job, but my desk will be there instead of in Orange (or soon, Costa Mesa). If I can do that, then if I ever want a different job I should face less prejudice. My best friend took a more circuitous route: California to New Orleans to Winston-Salem to Bellingham. Another friend went from CA to the army to Aberdeen to Hoquiam. BTW: I never encountered the prejudice in Bellingham.
I used to complain bitterly about where I lived (and I still bash it even though I don’t live there anymore), but I was born there and hadn’t managed to escape yet. Once I moved to the east coast I have nothing but praise for my surroundings
–
“it’s all real”
“I KNEW IT!!!”
O p a l C a t
www.opalcat.com
Some of us don’t have a choice about where we live. Some of us are forced to rely on Mommy and Daddy’s money to pay for school, and can’t get a job because the towne that Mommy and Daddy want us to live in has more poor, out-of-work college students than jobs – even on campus.
Of course, one of us is on the verge of getting Mommy and Daddy to let her move back to the city she loves. Everybody cross your fingers for me!
I would’ve gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids!
Three guys, one from OK, one from TX, one from NM, are walking down a beach and they find a lamp. They rub the lamp and a genie appears. The genie states that she will give each man one wish. The man from OK wishes that the land in OK will always be fertile, sense his family owns a farm there. The man from TX wishes for a wall around TX so that nothing can get in or out, that way no outside force and destroy the purity of his great state. The man from NM stops, thinks for a moment, then asks the genie, “giant wall around TX?”, genie says yes. “nothing in, nothing out?”, genie says yes. “fill it with water”
knuckle-dragging hose mongerer.
SDMB Self-Righteous Clique
A Tennesseean, a Californian and a Washingtonian are sitting around a camp fire. The Tennesseean pulls out a bottle of whisky, takes a sip, tosses the nearly-full bottle into the air, pulls out a shotgun and blasts it to smithereens. The Californian and the Washingtonian asked him why he wasted a bottle of whisky. The Tennesseean replied, “Oh, we have lots of that where I come from!”
The Californian opens his backpack and pulls out a bottle of good Napa Valley wine, takes a sip, throws the bottle into the air, and shoots it with a 9mm pistol. When asked why, he says, "Oh, we have lots of that where I come from.
The Washingtonian retrieves a bottle of micro-brew, slowly savours every drop, saves the bottle for recycling, then shoots the Californian. “We have lots of them where I come from…”