Plans changed due to family not being available to help watch the twins while I'm out having fun. You haven't seen a tired mommy till you come home to one who has been watching needy twins all day (can't even imagine triplets or more).
To respond to Kaytag and California bashing, this state isn't what it used to be and hasn't for nearly two decades under one party rule. The geography and weather are the same of course and that is the significant pull for many people. But now we must contend with policies that are soft on crime, highest taxes in the country with no end in sight of even more taxes, rampant homelessness, rampant drug abuse and prevalence (last time the wife and I went to the theater in SF, we literally walked by about 30 derelicts on the city government steps shooting up hard drugs in the open). There is garbage everywhere in the streets and streams where homeless encampments now sprawl.
If you look at a political map of California the Central, Eastern and Northern parts are mostly conservative but it is dominated by the Bay Area, Sacramento and LA. All places with dysfunctional policies that cause more problems but also where politicians are no longer accountable to the people and haven't been for years.
The only thing that keeps this state together is water and that is through the continued screwing of the Northern regions as the Central and Southern regions take it. Sure, Central and Southern California paid for the water infrastructure decades ago but those bonds have long been paid off. How much is that water worth today compared to what Northern California actually gets in return for it? Hard to have an LA economy without water yet it comes cheap and mostly plentiful at the expense of Northern California communities.
In an era of "billions" of budget surpluses, how much of it do you think will go to making Central and Southern California self sufficient in water without the continued taking advantage of the communities where rain actually does fall in meaningful amounts? I'm guessing about zero. Only San Diego with their desalination plant looks to have taken a step in the right direction. Of course, since California is eliminating all of its nuclear power plants, desalination just isn't practical to the extent needed. LA sits next to an ocean and yet they pull water from a giant straw 600 miles long?
Yup, California is great for the weather and geography but beyond that, it is a dystopian nightmare of one party politics and taking advantage of conservative rural communities.
