While most people jump in their cars or walk to public transportation to get to work, Darren Pleasance starts up his plane. Pleasance's family decided to make Bend, Oregon, their permanent home in 2010 even though it meant flying back and forth to the Bay Area for him. When he was tapped by Google to lead its global customer acquisitions team a couple of years later, he explained he would be out of the country most of the time....How lucky not to be "most people."
"You're not out in Hickville," he said. "The community here is very intellectual."How awful to be amongst hicks. Those deplorable people. But what's "very intellectual" about Bend?*
If you have to go into the main Silicon Valley, it's a "beautiful drive," said Seven Peaks Ventures general partner Matt Abrams.... "I'm an outdoor person," Abrams said. "If I wasn't in the mountains, I'd be a much angrier person.... Because it's easy to get to Bend, and there are a lot more people coming from the Bay Area and elsewhere, our job is to find out how to diversify the economy and not screw up the environment."Notice how not screwing up the environment is about what other people do.
_________________________
* Seriously. I'd like to know. I'm always looking for a better place to live. I see Bend has Central Oregon Community College and the OSU-Cascades Campus of Oregon State University. Not that I'm enamored of the intellectualism of higher education. What does "very intellectual" even mean in the context of looking for a place to live a good life? Maybe that the people well-educated? Is it dog-whistle talk for no black people? I see "The racial makeup of the city was 91.3% White, 0.5% African American...."
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My recollection is that Bend OR is the largest city in the US that sits within a radar hole -- because of beam blockage by mountains of all nearby National Weather Service radars. So -- no accurate tornado warnings there -- although you can get some accuracy via the newest satellites -- GOES-East, and GOES-S, to be GOES-West, which was just launched last week.
On the plus side, thunderstorms aren't that common there.
>"... our job is to find out how to diversify the economy and not screw up the environment."
Hick control. Maybe Orkin can help.
Ann said...
'...What does "very intellectual" even mean in the context of looking for a place to live a good life? Maybe that the people well-educated? Is it dog-whistle talk for no black people? I see "The racial makeup of the city was 91.3% White, 0.5% African American...."
I took it to mean that there are hardly any conservatives.
Bend over.
Bend is a former mill town and ranching center at the edge of the Oregon high desert that has become like Lake Tahoe, filled with second homes of a predominantly white upper-middle class — in other words, people like you and me. It is lovely, but Prineville is even better.
Telecommute to where you'd like to retire to.
What you don't want isn't low class but public housing.
I was in Bend last summer -- it's a lovely place undergoing rapid growth. Lots of little shops and restaurants clearly catering to and attracting affluent people. Lots of outdoor activities. Nice place to retire, if you can afford it.
Why do people have to go someplace to do their jobs? Especially people hi up on the employment ladder?
With the Internet, Amazon, Cable TV, etc. no place is "Hicksville".
I'd love to see what Pleasance thinks is "Intellectual"
I doubt I'd be impressed.
BTW, Oregon and Washington are "Code words" for no black people.
In my experience you can always find a few fairly intelligent people in rural areas, although they can often be a little eccentric, which I look at as a plus.
What does "very intellectual" even mean in the context of looking for a place to live a good life?
I think it means living among other people who like to use big words to deconstruct the ways of duller folks they've never met in order to improve their lives.
Besides, if he can afford to own a plane and commute, he and his family can fly to Portland or SF for all the "Intellect" they want.
I flew into Redmond, OR once, for a business trip to Microsoft. Unfortunately, Microsoft is in Redmond, WA. Since I flew on the last flight of the evening, I had to spend the night and fly out in the morning. Didn't get to see much. Not due to a lack of time. Due to a lack of anything to see.
I spent a week in Bend last year.
Place is fitness crazy. I only saw one overweight person. I also only saw one black person. And yeah, those two were the same person.
I think it leads the nation in microbreweries per capita.
My neighborhood has several Google employee households. These people have, by far, the largest carbon footprints of any other households.
But its all good. They offset it by hectoring other people to minimize their carbon footprints.
And by "very intellectual" I think he means not as stupid as the rest of Oregon.
"Intellectual" means "Liberal".
After my Mother died my Dad moved from the Jersey Shore to the Seattle area to be near my sister and her brood. A few months later he complained to me "There's no Italians or Jews here. What the Hell am I supposed to eat ?"
Besides, if he can afford to own a plane and commute, he and his family can fly to Portland or SF for all the "Intellect" they want.
My grandparents lived in Redmond for years and drove to Portland all the time to see my aunt and cousins. It's only a couple of hours away by car, and a beautiful drive.
Elite liberal whites always like to cluster around other elite liberal whites, and they find a way to pat themselves on the back while sneering at everyone else.
Bringing Blazing Saddles into the 21st Century,
"The people are revolting!"
"Yes, they certainly are"
Summing up what the left thinks of us.
My Lpog's son has a pretty big internet company and moved to Bend a couple of years ago. He's into rafting.
Unknown said...
I only saw one overweight person.
That'd be him!
Intellectual means affluent. America is already great! Too bad so many of you are getting screwed, but you can't imagine what keeping a place like this would cost if we had to pay benefits and overtime to the help!
Was in Bend, Oregon for 4 days last month. Quaint little town!
1. Downtown is about 3 square blocks. Dozens of nice little restaurants, a few jazz clubs, a few breweries, a nice old barbershop. Really good dining. Great New Orleans-style restaurant, Zydeco. If you took the tiny strip in Truckee, California and multiplied it by 3, you'd have Bend.
2. Cold, gentle snowfall.
3. Nice little river - the Deschutes.
4. Really convenient little airport in Richmond (30 or so miles away).
I'd give it a thumbs-up. Way better than grimey Portland, no doubt about that.
Oregon’s Eastern side of the Cascades is a unique place that draws rich retirees from every city. It has a dry heat climate and a culture that values individual responsability and self reliance. The ideas of Portlandia are as far from Bend as east is from West.
And mountain bike trails will be abundant. Just watch out on the highways for the logging trucks.
dry heat climate = Cold in winter and hot in summer. Not much rain. Its like AZ - only not as hot.
Bend leans somewhat left, but the county (Deschutes) still went for Trump over Clinton 48 percent to 44 percent. Oregon county election map here. Deschutes is the county just to the west of the exact middle of the state.
@Mr. Wibble,
"Intellectual" means "Liberal".
Also means, "Whites only"
I doubt Althouse, after spending years in "hip" "sophisticated" Madison with some extended time in NYC would be happy in Bend OR.
Unless you have a plane, its very isolated. It has a small "Intellectual" community - so, what if you don't like the peeps in the "small community" - you're stuck.
An intellectual is what happens when Bubba the bass fisherman switches to a flyrod and trout. And there are lots of places to fly fish near Bend.
dry heat climate = Cold in winter and hot in summer
Bend has the same average summer temperatures as Minneapolis -- 82 or so -- but the lack of humidity in the high desert makes it feel ten degrees cooler.
The CTO of Mr. Pants' company lives in Bend while they are headquartered in NY. We talked about it too as a place to live as we like the mountains, but it's too dry there for us and not having our own plane it's a bit too convoluted to connect to other places.
If your work involves continual travel to other cities and doesn't require daily attendance at an office, why not live somewhere cheaper and nicer and better? My better half flies to another city to meet with clients nearly every week and conducts the rest of his work remotely from home; there is no reason to live in New York if we don't want to (and with a large family it's not practical).
Bend is Oregon with sunshine. My wife is from the Portland area, and I love Oregon a lot, but couldn't handle the constant overcast skies. So, we looked into Bend for a little bit.
Lots of outdoor activities of all kinds, making it a prime place to go for those who have financial and vocational flexibility to live where they want to live.
For someone who apparently has little or no concern about her own environmental footprint, you sure like to bitch about the habits of others.
gspencer, I believe it was History of the World, Part I:
Sire, the peasants are revolting!
Yeah, they stink on ice!
Wait until Mr. Bend finds out there aren’t any Mexicans to clean his house and mow his lawn.
On the plus side. Great Pinot Noir all over the place.
Oregon liberals outside of Portland tend to retain the libertarian impulses that have all but vanished elsewhere with the advent of woke progressivism. It might have something to do with the fact that Oregon is lily-white.
Did you even read the article? Most of it was about telecommuting, not driving,or even flying, back and forth.
For someone who apparently has little or no concern about her own environmental footprint, you sure like to bitch about the habits of others.
Which means she would fit in perfectly with Al Gore and the rest of the climate change hucksters.
The only non-hypocrite among them (though he is wrong) is Ed Begley Jr.
Close relatives own a home in Bend. Been there several times. Housing prices rising rapidly. It will soon be afflicted with the same affordability problem as CA.
Couple of observations:
> Outdoor paradise.
> Coffee shop on every corner.
> Super dog friendly. Go to the supermarket and you will see more dogs than people. (I exaggerate a bit.)
> It's growth is fairly constrained with the Deschutes Nat. Forest and other geographical boundaries.
> Redmond is a wonderful airport.
> Pilot Butte is a wonderful hike with a panoramic view of Bend.
It's so intellectual, they don't use the subjunctive.
Bend is in the edge of the mountains but the roads lead from there in all directions to beautiful agricultural areas called the Inland
empire where the low class minority are the Indians. Most folks there have seen a black person or heard about one but instinctively avoid them. The population has enclaves of Italian and Portugese families who
Came to the area to Work in the fruit/wine industries. But the very idea of a labor union
Is totally rejected.
That's some weird cherry-picking from the article.
Darren Pleasance, the subject of the first anecdote is NOT the speaker of the second quote.
The second quote comes from "Dino Vendetti, managing partner of Bend-based early stage venture capital fund Seven Peaks Ventures" -- that is, from a guy whose business is in bend.
These guys don't "commute" in any reasonable sense of the word. They go on business trips. Most executives of most technology companies spend a lot of time traveling no matter where they are located.
I lived in Eugene, Oregon from 1968 to 1978, when I joined the US Air Force and moved away. I lived there again during 1998-2000. My parents and two of my brothers continued living there.
About 70% of the Oregon population lives in the Willamette River Valley, which runs from Eugene to Portland.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willamette_Valley
The eastern two-thirds of Oregon is mostly desert. The rain clouds that come from the Pacific Ocean drop practically all their rain onto the state's western third -- mostly into the Willamette Valley.
The city of Bend is in that desert.
Bend used to be a pretty nice place until the uncontrolled immigration from California.
All those 'intellectuals'. LOL! I doubt one could find many intellectuals among the Silicon Valley set.
I wonder how many of the older locals have "Don't Californicate Oregon" bumper stickers.
When I used to drive through Bend on Highway 97 to Portland (because the pass to Eugene was closed, the road was usually open to Bend, but closed after Redmond.
The winter storms were pretty fierce through there. My dad and I flew to Bend just a couple of times, but never in the winter. The icing was ferocious on the wings, and if you started down, you were going down, so don't plan on a go-around, or climbing back up to altitude in a puddle-jumper.
Bend doesn't have a precision approach. So if you have an Airline Transport Pilot license the best you can do is 500 feet and 1 mile visibility if the DME is working. So, if you can't get that, you are going to have to diverts a 100 miles to find an airport with an ILS. The GPS approaches are 700 ft and a mile. Bonkers!
A funny remark on the airport notes: COLD TEMPERATURE RESTRICTED AIRPORT.
Bottom line, Oregon doesn't have a Sales Tax. They get their money from property taxes, and hidden fee's like not being ablt to pump your own fricking gas.
Pump this one -- baby!
The best way to view Oregon is from space.
I'm delighted to see that Stuff White People Like is still available.
I have relatives there. It's a lot like Durango, Colorado. "Intellectual" means there is skiing.
James McMurtry: I'm Not From Here
I'm not from here
But people tell me it's not like it used to be
They say I should've been here back about ten years
Before it got ruined by folks like me
I've read there used to be a bumper sticker saying "Don't Californicate Oregon". Didn't work.
Is there any spot on the map Liberals won't fuck up with their failed policies?
The Pilatus PC-12 single engine turboprop shown in the photo burns 63 gallons of jet fuel per hour and can get from Bend to SV in about an hour and a half one-way.
189 gallons per day, times 20 lbs of CO2/gallon of jet fuel burned = 3,780 lbs of CO2/day.
So let's just call it 2 tons of CO2 / day to account for extra fuel burned during takeoff and needing to take the long way around busy SFO airspace.
A charming town in Oregon is Cottage Grove.
https://www.eugenecascadescoast.org/cottage-grove/
Discover the All-America City (1968, 2004) of Cottage Grove, Oregon, a charming, small town just twenty minutes south of Eugene - Springfield. Find live music, theatre arts and small-town favorite eateries in this city that borders both Oregon Wine Country and the Cascade foothills. Cottage Grove is also a prime gateway to outdoor adventuring.
You can't take your house with you.
California got fucked up by all the northeastern flatlanders who came after the summer of love in 1967.
Howard, yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes.
I'm amazed only one comment referenced skiing. I have lived in Eugene most of my life, and while Willamette Pass and Hoodoo Bowl were good skiing, if you really wanted to ski you drove the two hours to Bachelor. If you had the time and the money, you could stay at SunRiver or Inn of the Seventh Mountain. Six feet of snow piled around the hot tub, and a good band in the bar. Ah, those were the days! Haven't been in a while, I hear the Californians are ruining it, just like they ruin everything else.
I've posted this before. I lived in Oregon for a year when young but, naively, until recently had no idea of its shocking history of racism and attempting to keep blacks out. http://wapo.st/2rZehTM?tid=ss_mail&utm_term=.c5ad8ce4a99c
tidbit: "Portland ... is still the whitest large city in America — and that’s by design. Before becoming a state in 1859, Oregon passed laws that prohibited slavery but also required all African Americans to leave the territory. It simply wanted no black people.. . when Oregon joined the union, it joined not as a free state or a slave state, but as a no-blacks state, the only state to do so." There is worse and more recent stuff in the article.
The best region I have seen so far is the west side of Highway 5 between Portland and Salem Or. It makes Napa look like Mexico
You can't take your house with you.
I took my house with me for years.
"A charming town in Oregon is Cottage Grove."
It is also the town that the parade in Animal House was filmed...for what it's worth.
It was years and years ago, but we went to the Shakespeare festival at Bend.
My impression was a nice town in a beautiful landscape, but significant distance from an urban area.
The Shakespeare event was good. We saw a Moliere play.
"Very intellectual" means "I think I am smart and the people here agree with me." The implied modifiers are the "people" have college degrees and do not have dirty jobs unless it is organic kale farmer or something like that.
Etienne, I really enjoy your posts even though occasionally your weirdness is off the chart.
Go to Eastern Oregon. Stop in Pendleton for a Rodeo or for woolen clothes and blankets. Local sheep virgin wool
Is woven at the Pendleton Mills and ends up in Pendleton Wool Shirts sold on then Althouse Amazon portal for $120.00 , and they last you 30 years.
@Howard,
California got fucked up by all the northeastern flatlanders who came after the summer of love in 1967
heh - you got that right! It sounds like a phony cliche, but, true, my NYC folks and their merry band of hippies drove a VW van across country to SF during that time.
And, to think, Ronnie Reagan was Governor, and Tricky Dick was Prez -- the good old days.
I remind folks that California voted for Bush in 1988. It was a purple state -- red in the south, blue in the north. But, then the Left unleashed the illegal immigrants and illegal voting in the south, and, voila', 1-party Democrat rule.
Portland and Eugene probably pulled Oregon way left, too.
As for Bend? Nice place, no minorities, probably will stay purple, but who knows.
"Distanced" from "carbon footprints"?
Well, that's one way to say "not a hippie", I guess.
(Out here in the real world, nobody cares about a "carbon footprint", especially not at that pipsqueak level - world emissions are 36 billion tons a year, and that's just the human action component.
His 2 tons per commute, per above, are not even rounding error in that math. Not even if a thousand people did that, which they wouldn't anyway.)
I was a weather nut long before the debut of The Weather Channel, and Bend, Oregon is a town I had heard of as child in the 1970s. The television weather guy would always give you the high and low temps of the day for the US, and Bend was quite frequently (3 or more times a year) the low temperature in the US during the Summer months. It is also how I learned the names of towns like Houlton, Maine- Gila Bend and Kingman, Arizona- etc.
Part of the problem with California republicans is they overplayed their hands. The successful anti-immigrant prop 187 reduced Latino (Latino's are naturally conservative people) support for republicans from 50% to 25%. Then State Legeslature term limits ballot measure gave all the power to SEIU and the Teachers Union and it was all over but the crying.
What's going to eventually sink the regressive liberals is the huge income disparity and low quality of life for the people in the hamster-cage rat race to keep their noses above water in a flood of high housing costs.
It's a lot like Durango, Colorado. "Intellectual" means there is skiing.
Yeah, I was going to say Bend is 'Boulder-ey'. I looked at buying at Pronghorn when the RE market tanked. I think intellectual means people who look and act just like me where me means very white or a retired NFL player living at Pronghorn, affluent or from a family that is, and are passionate about the environment and/or the outdoors in one way or another. You can ski in the morning and play 18 in the afternoon. Temperatures are mild year round except for on the volcanoes.
Virgil Hilts said......until recently had no idea of its shocking history of racism and attempting to keep blacks out.
I was raised in Portland. We lived in the east side, outside the city, in the County during my school years.
Out in the farm areas of Gresham and Orient there was very few blacks. We had two blacks in all of our high school. The girl was retarded and in special education, and the guy was a jock.
But Japanese people flourished there. We had tons of Japanese descent and of course most of the berry farms were all Japanese owned. Our Homecoming Queens were usually Japanese girls.
It was weird. The first blacks I met in great number was when I went to Basic Training. Hoo-boy, that was an education. I then went to Biloxi and met real black people on the back bay. Hoo-boy! They were interesting folks. But I don't think they've ever been to Emerald City...
mockturtle said...
I took my house with me for years.
Is that how you picked your nom-de-plume?
Ann states, ".....'...What does "very intellectual" even mean in the context of looking for a place to live a good life?....." Well in his case, plus the facts of Bend, Oregon, prove that this guy loves to live in an area where there is no industry other than "minimum wage" jobs driven by tourism. Guess he feels the need to be "king of the mountain" in intellectual terms.
Hopefully his other car is a Cirrus.
Progressivism: Making the world safe for well-off, white, progressive people.
I spent a lot of time there in the 70’s when I lived in Oregon for seven years. Bend was a cute mountain town of about 15,000 then, focused on outdoor activities,timber, and tourism. Its an interesting place if you like natural history and exploring interesting natural features. Its near Mt. Bachelor for skiing, not far from the the Three Sisters wilderness area, and a jump off point for exploring the Oregon high desert.
Today its a burgeoning retirement destination with steady high population growth. Its also relatively isolated if you need urban experiences. Portland is about a 3.5 hour drive away and Eugene is about 2.5 hours away by car.
When I was there, I explored every mountain trail I could handle. In the Three Sisters range, you can hike up to the glaciers. Fall River trail was wonderful, and Mt. Bachelor offered the best skiing I ever experienced. I did a lot of wonderful fly fishing for trout in the nearby
Metolius River. It is very dry. I think it will become the victim of its own success as it continues its rapid population growth. It is located in a fragile eco-system that probably can’t handle over-population very well.
It will also be full of apocalyptic eco-warrior types, for whom radical environmentalism is a religion. Not much interest in compromise
or negotiation with these folks.
If you looking for a good retirement destination that offers access to the same type of natural experiences as well as low-key urban amenites in the Northwest, I would seriously look at Boise, Idaho.
Remember that Oregon income tax rates are among the very highest in the nation.
A few years ago, one of the Big 4 accounting firms tried to recruit me to their San Francisco office. At the time, our youngest daughter was a junior in high school and the sticking point was my not wanting to remove her from her close circle of friends for her senior year. Their proposed solution: my wife and family stay in Arizona and I fly back on the weekends. They put me in contact with one of their partners who was making the same weekly commute in his own plane and had offered to share the expense with me.
It was tempting. Both California and Arizona are community property states. Arguably, half of the income (my wife's half) would have been subject to Arizona's much lower income tax rates. That would have covered most of the commuting expense.
For pete's sake. No one is commuting by plane from Bend to Silicon Valley. Some executives, who do a lot of business travel, have homes in Bend and originate their business travel from there. The article headline is just trolling.
Cookeville, Tn. It's a little ragged in places, but it also has some very nice places to live. A reasonable home is 100k, 200k gets a mansion. It is on the highland rim, halfway up the Cumberland Mountain. There are multiple lakes, streams, trails, caving systems. Lots of federal parks.
Tennessee Technological University.
Very low taxes. Well known as a retirement town.
The Pilatus is a nice ride, BTW. The short haul workhorse of the überclasse.
It doesn't say what sort of airplane he'd use for commuting, but, we are talking about ~thousand miles round trip. So even if he's got a fancy private plane, he's surely not doing that every day.
My guess would be that he drops in at Google for a day or two perhaps a few times per month, and everything else is Skype. And my experience is that companies often don't get full value from a long-distance relationship like that, but, it's Google's money, they've got plenty of it, and at least someone must think he's worth it.
So, judge for yourself: here's some of Darren Pleasance's distilled wisdom:
http://blogs.anderson.ucla.edu/anderson/2016/05/5-pieces-of-wisdom-from-darren-pleasance-googles-managing-director-of-global-customer-acquisitions-.html
(Although “Have the courage to have a point of view. And don’t be afraid to share it" seems mighty poor advise for any Googler with less than an absolutely totally 100% conventionally PC PoV.)
www at 11:50 AM
It was years and years ago, but we went to the Shakespeare festival at Bend.
The Shakespeare festival is in Ashland, which too is a very nice town.
I hear the Californians are ruining it, just like they ruin everything else.
Yep, all the Californian Republicans and independents escaping the Golden State ruining it.
Recently, our own Dr. Mike invaded Arizona and is "ruining it".
Considering cashing in and taking my California Chaos out of state.
mockturtle said...Etienne, I really enjoy your posts even though occasionally your weirdness is off the chart.
After tomorrow I should be 20/20 again! I get my right eye fixed with a new lens. I should be in phase with all my thoughts again. No more left handed views of things.
Mike Sylvester observes: A charming town in Oregon is Cottage Grove.
Yes! Two thumbs up.
IiB asks: Is that how you picked your nom-de-plume?
One of several reasons, yes.
Bay Area Guy said...
"Portland and Eugene probably pulled Oregon way left, too."
When I was growing up in Eugene, it was a lumber town, around 50K, with a University on the east side. There was a giant cross on Skinner's Butte, overlooking downtown, which was lighted for a month or so around Christmas. Nice place to grow up, except the schools were for shit. But I think that's true everywhere that has schools.
Then around 78, some idiot of a judge ruled that the students at the University could register to vote here, instead of where their parents lived. It's been a Communist shithole ever since. Of course, the cross had to come down.
I've read there used to be a bumper sticker saying "Don't Californicate Oregon". Didn't work.
The license plate frame on my 72 K5 Blazer says
State of Jefferson
Border Patrol
Even in parts of California we don't want to be Californicated
Bend Oregon area is basically the same as where I live just a bit farther north. And sadly...it is being fornicated by the bay area Californicators.
@Jupiter,
Hey, as a kid, I spent summers in Eugene in the early 70's. The rain! Was surrounded by hippies, ever heard of the White Bird Clinic?
I've had family in Bend and Redmond since the '70s. I fell in love with Bend immediately -- the Deschutes River runs through it, with (at the time) affordable houses with yards going to the river's edge, with gazebos to watch the otters play. It was a great small town that has done a fantastic job of staying great as it grew. Lots of greenbelts, hiking trails, parks. Old mills have been repurposed into fine recreational and retail areas. One of the healthiest areas in the country. My Bro in Law told me that there are more MDs per capita there than anywhere in the world, due to the recreational opportunities.
On a side note, Facebook has a MASSIVE data center nearby. It is almost overwhelming. Hard to believe it's just one of many.
I took my house with me for years.
Not AA's house you didn't; and they do not make them like that any more and haven't for a 100 years.
The Civil War was supposed to settle the question of whether a state can secede from the Union or not inn the negative, but how about expelling one? Or part of a one?
DBQ could consult her lawyer about that and perhaps start a movement.
I flew into Redmond, OR once, for a business trip to Microsoft. Unfortunately, Microsoft is in Redmond, WA
Heh. I never heard that one. The big mistake I've hears is confusing Redmond, OR airport RDM with North Bend, OR OTH and vice versa. Golfers going to Bandon Dunes end up fishing the Deschutes. Anglers and skiiers end up in Coos Bay and are out of luck.
I left Eugene in 1978 before the students could vote. It was a nice town then of about 95,000 people. I hear that it is much larger now. Then I could safely bicycle anywhere in town without too much effort. It was very flat.
We lived on West Broadway, about 7 blocks from the downtown mall, which I hear has deteriorated. At the time, Oregon was represented in Washington by some interesting people: Mark Hatfield, Bob Packwood, and Wayne Morse.
Politically, at that time the state tended to be fiscally conservative but socially liberal. That alignment has obviously changed.
I would second the recommendation of Boise. Another option is Cedar City, Utah. St. George is not far from Las Vegas (about 2.5 hours by car) or Salt Lake City (3.5 hours). Cedar City is home to Southern Utah University, which hosts an excellent Shakespearean Festival each summer. Close by are Zion's National and Bryce Canyon national parks. Several national parks and national monuments are within an easy drive.
Boise and Cedar City both have a lot to recommend them as retirement destinations. Good communities with good healthcare, low crime, many cultural, education, and outdoors activities available. Boise is cooler in the summer and colder in the winter. It snows in Cedar, but the snow generally melts in a day or two. It stays in Boise for weeks. Boise is a larger town with a larger airport. Cedar is closer to a 'major airport'.
DBQ could consult her lawyer about that and perhaps start a movement.
Secession will never work because we will be outvoted by the urban areas (as always).
The only "movement" that will set us free will be when the San Andreas moves enough to dump SO Cal and the Bay Area into the ocean.
My husband was born in a hospital in Eugene. The alternative was at home in the Lorraine Valley. His family still lives in the general area. They were early settlers from around 1850's. Farming and later logging. There is a road in the Lorraine Valley area named after their family and they have still, a private cemetery with some very interesting and historical grave markers.
We never go back there anymore because as Jupiter says. Eugene is a Communist shithole.
African-Americans? Half-breeds? Half-citizens? Libyan?
"Well-educated" is congruent, but not equal to "no black people".
Also, there is limited color diversity and diversity. A low-density population center. Still, I imagine that there is a fairly equal distribution of the male and female sex in any viable population. Equal and complementary. Yin and yang.
It's listed as one of the best beer towns in the country by some. Here's a quote from the Pour Fool several years ago, https://blog.seattlepi.com/thepourfool/2013/01/29/americas-ten-best-beer-towns-the-non-fiction-list/.
"In exactly NONE of the two dozen lists I read on google did the name “Bend” show up. BIG mistake. Here’s a town of 80,000, sitting all alone in the middle of Oregon’s High Desert, with no major college or national business headquarters except Country Financial, no major sports teams, and a downtown the size of a phone booth, and you’d think Nothin’ is Happenin’ In Bend, except for some pretty fancy skiing up there on Mount Bachelor. And you’d be WRONG, so totally freakin’ wrong. If there were no other beermakers in Bend, Deschutes Brewery, arguably one of America’s Top Five producers, would be reason enough to make Bend a destination. But then add in the fabulous 10 Barrel, the superb but under-the-radar Bend Brewing, the quirky, uniformly-excellent Silver Moon, the edgy and totally phenomenal Boneyard, former Deschutes brewer Paul Arney’s mysterious, stunning Ale Apothecary, neighborhood fave GoodLife, tiny Below Grade, and what I think is destined to become America’s next iconic brewery, Larry Sidor’s Crux Fermentation Project, and you have Bend – a national-class beer destination and one of the country’s hottest emerging craft beer cultures. The new, much-ballyhooed Worthy Brewing is just opening this February and at least five others are planned for ’13. Stay Tuned…"
"Before becoming a state in 1859, Oregon passed laws that prohibited slavery but also required all African Americans to leave the territory. It simply wanted no black people.. . when Oregon joined the union, it joined not as a free state or a slave state, but as a no-blacks state, the only state to do so." There is worse and more recent stuff in the article."
OMG (says the SJW) happy they've found RACISM and can feel superior. I just love looking through history, trying to find RACISM and SEXISM.
Wow, did you REALIZE that women couldn't vote till 1890 in the USA. WOW!
DO you realize that 1859 was *only* 159 years ago.
WOW, just WOW.
DBQ,
If the other counties vote to expel the coastal counties from Sacramento to Los Angeles, those counties do not get to vote on that.
The 19th Amendment did not pass until 1920 - not quite 98 years ago.
Notice how not screwing up the environment is about what other people do.
A person I used to work with (and no longer talks to me because of Trump's victory) is, in her words, 'All about the water and the environment.' She would always exhort the workers to recycle, not waste water, ride your bike to work, take the bus, etc. She implied I wasted water because I have a water feature in the patio. They won't have children because the world is already filled with too many people who have no good quality of life. Of course, she and her husband live in a 2800 sq foot house on two acres with 3 cats and four vehicles, with a dried well so they have to truck water in if the cistern runs low, and in Placitas, where we maybe get 10 or 11 inches of rain a year, it is going to run low. There is no bus service; she now works 40 minutes from her work place and her husband works part time 40 minutes away. But she used to live in Portland and she took the bus to work there, so it is OK.
"What does 'very intellectual' even mean in the context of looking for a place to live a good life? Maybe that the people well-educated? Is it dog-whistle talk for no black people?
It means everyone you meet will have the same opinions about pretty much all of the hot-button issues. Climate change. Check. Open borders. Check. Trump. Double and triple check. Etc. About as diverse as Silicon Valley itself, or any faculty senate meeting. The 'hicks' are all those who are unwilling to get on board with the approved agenda.
wwww said...
It was years and years ago, but we went to the Shakespeare festival at Bend.
Ashland OR?
White people like microbreweries
In the mid-90s I worked with a fellow in Mountain View CA (right where Google HQ is now). He had moved to Mariposa near Yosemite, about 140 air miles from Palo Alto airport. He said the economics of having his family (wife and 1 kid) in a nice place there, and flying round-trip to PA were a bit better than trying to live in the Mountain View area. Plus, he got to fly everyday.
But, he was very careful. His plane was a Beech Sundowner, not terribly capable. So, even though he was IFR (Instrument) rated, he planned ahead to not fly if the weather looked chancy at all. He had an arrangement with a friend with a Palo Alto apartment to doss on the couch when needed, and telecommuting arranged with his management.
He made it work for a couple years, but then left the company.
"Get-there-itis" kills more light-plane commuters and especially MDs every year, than any other identifiable cause. (The MDs because, it is believed, they have an excess of confidence and ego.)
JML,
No llamas?
10 to 11 inches per year is actually pretty good for Placitas. The Weather Service average is based on the running average of the last 30 years, which varies depending on whether two wet periods of Mother Nature's 22-year cycle is included, or two dry cycles. Two dry cycles, and the 30-year average is down to 7-8 inches/year.
It is policy; it does not have to make sense!
OR is a great state, tax-wise, to retire to if your retirement income isn't mostly earned income. OR has zero sales tax and ranks in the middle of all states for property taxes. With friends throughout the state I think Ashland is the perfect choice. Weather is seasonal without being extreme. Located in the lower Cascade range there's a surfeit of outdoor activities, with excellent hiking/walking trails easily accessible. Also, Summer's sold out Shakespeare Festival!
Re: moving to another locale--if you haven't been to State College PA you really should take a little trip and try it out. I lived there 8 years (4 years undergrad and 4 years as an assistant district attorney) and it seems to me that you'd be a good fit. It's really beautiful--nature out the wazoo--and the university provides so many opportunities for cultural and intellectual stimulation. Also, your cost of living would a billionty-times less, and you're within a few hours drive of the east coast.
Fred Drinkwater said...
"Get-there-itis" kills more light-plane commuters and especially MDs every year, than any other identifiable cause. (The MDs because, it is believed, they have an excess of confidence and ego.)
In the Army serving in Germany, I was a Liaison Officer and had to do a lot of flying (as a pac) sitting in the left seat of a scout helo. I remember one foggy night flying back from Division HQ we were IFR (I follow roads) flying under low clouds up the autobahn at maybe 100 feet. I still shudder at the words:
"keep an eye out. I know there are power lines around here somewhere."
After that, I coined a descriptive phrase for such flying:
"It is often too foggy to fly out. It is never too foggy to fly home..."
“For someone who apparently has little or no concern about her own environmental footprint, you sure like to bitch about the habits of others.”
What’s the basis for that remark? That I don’t flaunt my environmentalst practices and all the many choices we make that keep our footprint small? I could, and I am very concerned about this. You should be embarrassed about this accusation. Do you have any concern about truthfulness?
Bend is a nice place.
LaGrande is better.
Bend needs more "very intellectual"... blacks?
Author probably means Barry Obama and Cornell West
Not Clarence Thomas or Thomas Sowell
San Fran guys want to get away from poop in the streets
Reducing footprint will not improve the environment. Footprint is like paying penance and for fostering a holier than thou attitude. Only the application of hard science and engineering to agriculture, energy and industry will make a difference. But don't worry, men are solving the big problems as we speak, so keep flying private planes, living in the sticks, eating meat and washing your SUV with drinking water... guilt-free
"The 19th Amendment did not pass until 1920 - not quite 98 years ago."
Wyoming gave women the Vote in 1890. Other states gave Women the vote BEFORE 1920, including California and NY.
So, I guess you're not as smart as you wish to appear.
If you can fly from Marioposa to Mt View 200 times a year, you can probably afford to buy a nice house in Santa Cruz or the North Bay.
Rocean,
He liked to fly. A lot.
Drill Sgt,
VFR on top from Grand Canyon into Santa Barbara one day I overheard a dialogue between SB and a pilot under the solid cloud deck. He was asking if he could get from the inland valley over the ridge to SB, given the ceiling. Controller kept asking if he was instrument rated, but got no clear answer. After a while the dialogue ended. I kept an eye out for the accident report but saw nothing. I hope he turned around.
Helos and power lines:
No joke. In the 70s a NASA contract pilot was killed and his copilot crippled by running a helo into power lines one foggy day in the east SF bay.
Yep -- Ashland is where the Shakes festival is. Got em confused. Never been to Bend, but heard there's good skiing there.
It's higher in altitude then Ashland. Some people don't notice altitude until it's pretty high, others react to it.
Recently a family we know moved to Boise. They are hikers and like it for the outdoor activities. They put the toddler in a metal frame backpack and away they go. I've been to Boise and thought it was pretty, with pretty quick drives to stunning landscape.
Fred: The famous SF concert promoter Bill Graham met his end in a helicopter that collided with a transmission tower just north of SFBay. The ship was welded onto the tower
http://www.check-six.com/Crash_Sites/Graham-N3456M.htm
Howard,
"Since the pilot was familiar with the geographic area, he flew the helicopter using a technique known as "pilotage" - flying from one fixed point to another. Near State Highway 37, west of Vallejo, witnesses observed the helicopter paralleling a highway at about 200 feet above the ground, dodging the clouds."
My IFR trips in the fog were in the same type bird. a Bell JetRanger (OH-58)
There was a major kerfuffle last week about Salem and Bend. The HS athletic conference decided to lump Bend in with the Salem-Keizer SD schools. Which means that, for half the games, S-K kids will need to travel to Bend. This involves mountains, snow, &c. Of course the Bend kids will get exactly the same thing, going to games at S-K. I don't know whether their parents are also protesting. But in any case, the decision stands. (I think the argument is that schools of rough parity ought to compete against one another. Bend teams don't have any nearby rivals.)
I've said this before, but you ought to consider Salem; it's quiet (apart from the railway, that is, and we're close enough to hear it at all hours), has some pretense to quasi-intellectuality (Willamette U is here; OSU is in Corvallis, U of O in Eugene), is close enough to Portland(ia) that you can sample it, but not so close as to be annoying ...
I just ran across the Nov/Dec issue of BEND Magazine. $4.99/issue. Slick paper, lots of color. Upscale? And HOW!
Bend is a former mill town and ranching center at the edge of the Oregon high desert that has become like Lake Tahoe, filled with second homes of a predominantly white upper-middle class — in other words, people like you and me. It is lovely, but Prineville is even better.
I didn't know owning your own plane was an UMC requirement.
I wonder if he's reimbursed for that cost?
wwww, Perhaps you remember the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland? in southern Oregon, not Bend? People drive back and forth from Eugene to Bend to ski etc-- what's a couple of hours, after all, no big deal; it takes an hour or so to get to the coast. People I know who grew up in Bend go back there to visit family but wouldn't relocate back if their lives depended on it-- but I reckon that's often the case with one's hometown, particularly when it's quite small. I do know someone who grew up in Bend who swears she had never seen a Black person except on television etc until she moved to Eugene when in high school.
Sorry for the repetition-- I see others had already pointed out that the OSF is at Ashland.
Bay Area Guy, White Bird Clinic still serves a fairly large population of uninsured people, yes, although perhaps in different buildings than when you were here. Am not very familiar with that part of town or its history since I'm only infrequently near campus, to borrow books at the UO library or to attend concerts at Beall Hall.
Cottage Grove is a pleasant enough small town, but you may as well go for broke and settle down in Dorena.
I didn't know owning your own plane was an UMC requirement.
It's a 2.5 hour drive from Portland, which that new googlemaps software will tell you once you install it on your mainframe.
Bend, Oregon, but don't break!
I'm familiar with Bend and Central Oregon. Some great stuff there, yes, but somebody needs to mention the long, very cold winter. I'm originally from Canada and Bend has a tougher winter than any major Canadian city except maybe Winnipeg and Edmonton.
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