Goodbye, ILLinois

Lol. Just seeing you say that cracked me up.

Hey, my birthday is in late June and the last few years ive had to wear a coat while celebrating it outside. I also remember it snowing on Mothers day. Look outside this morning, snow flurries and 34 degrees and its mid April. No thanks, i must just be getting old and cranky, too.

 

Those are temporary aberrations. We had eighties last year in February. Just singular data points.

I'm not trying to defend the winters of Chicago, they are brutal, but swapping them for the equally brutal heat of Texas wouldn't be my reason to leave this state. As I said, the best is a combination of both worlds: Spend December-March in the South and the rest here. At some point I'll follow that plan just as many of my friends/neighbours already do.

 

Austin is a nice town. Flew there to pickup my motorcycle, hung out for a few days and then headed to Corpus. I really like the area but I have to agree, I couldn't do the heat there either afaic, it's trading one extreme for another. That's why I chose NC for our relocation, mild temps through the year and of course, the ocean and the mountains near by.

 

Sounds like a good choice.

 

We get hail here too.
A few years back a lot of cars in L.Forest were heavily damaged (my S600 was totaled by insurance) and a lot of homes needed new roofs.
How about the nice midwestern wind that destroyed so many trees and roofs on the North Shore not long ago and busted electric lines for almost a week?
Also,as Spike already mentioned,2 100years floods that destroyed so many basements?
2007 flood that sunk thousands of cars on the Edens?
The point is, there is no "safe" place anywhere,you can find problems anywhere......
The problem with Illinois is not just the weather difficulties but the politics that destroy our way of life here.

 

Agreed with that. Which is why I said leaving town for the cold winter and then going to a place hot as a furnace makes little sense to me.

Destroy is a strong word. But making it more difficult I'd agree with. That said, lets see where Texas is at in 10 years from now. Predictions are that it will become a swing state with an equal mix of red and blue (and Austin is already fully blue at this point).

 

So is San Antonio unfortunately,with extremely liberal Julian Castro as Mayor,quickly rising star in democratic Party.
Some say,possible future Potus.......

 

I hear you, but part of the problem is the lines are old and should be underground(you would think we would have this by now!!). Also it's easy to blame things on a 100 year storm when townships don't plan well enough, partly because of NIMBYS not wanting retention ponds near them or the construction required to put them there. I have never had damaging hail and have lived all over central Chicagoland. My point was you can take what Chicago gets and times that by atleast two for cetral Texas. Central Texas storms make Chicago storms look like a walk in the park. I hope with climate warming we do not get worse, but in the last few years the straight line winds around here seem to be getting worse. I think they clocked winds at 75kts at the O'hare last year. That's a whole other topic. Plus as you all are pointing out, Texas politics is getting worse..........

 

You can run down Chicago, but then see a link of photos like this. These were taken during the winter.




Chicago - Up Close Part II - SkyscraperPage Forum


and this:

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=204568

 

Will never happen.

Dale

 

Not to turn this into a P&R debate, but about a year ago when everybody in the P&R section was touting that Obama is going to loose by a landslide I was listening to a trader who follows demographic trends etc. He predicted all along that Obama would not only win but win by a landslide. Well, we know how that turned out. The same guy predicts that Texas will be a swing state in about 8 years due to the changing demographics including immigrants moving into Texas. We'll see.

 

We got married in Holy Name Cathedral, and secured the entire 95th floor for our wedding reception, two of the most spectacular buildings in the world, so i will always be partial to Chicago. Its a beautiful city. Period.
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And what a lovely wife you have. Congrats!

 

Thank you, Andreas. She thought you were pretty cool as well.

 

If you are talking about Nate Silver. He is good, but predicting Obama to win was easy. Any Democratic candidate starts out with a 67 electoral vote head start if you add: New York, Illinois, and California and subtract Texas. For a Republican to win, he or she MUST capture Florida, which is unlikely given all the people living on the government dole in Florida. In fact, I'll predict here and now that the Democrats will win in 2016 and 2020.

And yes, I study demographics also. (I used to be in the home building business.) Legal Hispanics are already the majority in Texas. But there are a lot of countervailing factors that don't show up in head counts:

1. Texas is an open shop state. The only unions we have are those who work on federal projects.
2. Welfare in Texas sucks. The word on the street is you get a better deal in states like New York, Illinois, and California.
3. When an illegal becomes legal, something funny tends to happen. They become conservative.
4. But most importantly, Texas (and particularly Houston) is one of the most entrepreneurial states in the union. I haven't checked in a while, but the permit for starting a dba business used to be only $5. Not only are we attracting start ups from all over the world, but those who are successful kinda like keeping things this way. And to keep this out of P&R, think about how expensive it would have been for Rob to start Ferrari Chat in Chicago. I don't know how much he spent getting this off the ground, but I doubt it was a whole lot.

Dale

PS Our women are better looking too.

 

No, was a different guy (investment adviser) but anyway sounds like you have given this some serious thought too. We will see who is right (and I'm not insisting I am), not that I really care one way or the other. Politics IMHO are overrated, for better or worse.

 

You really expect to be taken seriously with a statement like that when you list owning 3 cars

458($229K+/-)
g63($130k+/-)
cl63($154k+/-)

(base prices)

That's $500k before options, license and tax... for three things you drive to and from wherever.

Seems your way of life is just fine all things considered if you can lay out that kind of scratch for cars in the land of "politic's that destroy our way of life here".

And who are these "our" people???

The place isn't perfect by a long shot but it seems the people whining have their nut covered and the ability to have a few extras that most don't despite such a "hostile" climate.

well played...

and where is that Dow Jones avg. again?.... and how many f cars has it paid for? waiting for it...

 

A lot of assumptions going on there, so how about these..

He has the right to have as many cars as he wants. Maybe he'd prefer an F12 but had to settle for a 458 because of the unfair taxes he had to burden. Maybe he's an employer, and thank god for him, I hope his employees do every day. Without his efforts, the state would do with less, or because its ILL, pass the burden on to the rest of us.

The G63 is nice but maybe he wanted the 2017 Lamborghini SUV instead but his company is over regulated and he had to cut back...

There's always other facets to the story but if you feel he already has enough or maybe too much, and should feel greatful, then there is the reason he and others want out. That's the problem, not the answer

Celebrate wealth, I personally wish him a warehouse of priceless cars, because if my assumptions are correct, im willing to bet that he owns a business that benefits your life, one that makes your life more enjoyable.

 

You see, that's the frigging point. In Texas not only do we celebrate wealth, we worship it.

Rock on, bro.

Dale

 

No assumptions at all(alright, maybe one see below), I'm all for anyone having whatever they want and work for.

Where I get off the bus is when one comes here and whines about a system that they decided to base themselves in and has supported them and their success to the point of having the ability to have a garage that(potentially) commands a min. of 1/2 a million dollars (alright, my only assumption being they were bought new)to attain and that's after the money to pay for said garage that houses said car collection...

Add to that there are are others about as there usually are that have achieved more in the very same system.

 

I have this disease that keeps me on these car blogs,forces to buy way too many car magazine subscriptions,keeps me glued to every F1 race and ruins my financial future because of my addiction to great cars.However,
about 150 people make a decent living working at my business,most own their homes, drive nice cars and go on nice vacations so I make a decent income too.
Sadly, my addiction to cars will have to be tempered,my expensive home (that was supposed to make a great addition to my retirement nest egg but we know what happened) has to be sold at a loss,and most of all,a very large percentage of my employees will have to be let go.
The ever growing regulations,restrictions and corp. taxes in this state,the earth shattering changes that obamacare is bringing (you have no idea what's in store...) WILL reduce my company by half either by the loss of customers who can't afford the new prices (service company) or by our inability to maintain the payroll with the new requirements starting in '14.
I don't have the 458 anymore,canceled my plans for F12,hopefully can keep my other cars for a while.
Came to this Country over 30 years ago with $5k in my pocket (literally),barely spoke English,started my business and did well for a while,never had anyone give me anything for free.
I see the changes in the way people think here,most of all,a slow degeneration of minds,jealousy,resentment to anyone doing better then themselves,"what's in it for me?" attitude,etc,etc.
I could probably write a book how corrupted this state is,how much waste the administration is responsible for, how many manufacturing companies have already left of are planning to leave,all because of the idiotic stuff these bozos in Springfield come up with (of course big business is exempt,too embarrassing for the gov. to see them leave).
Your post is just an example of the changing attitude.
I'll stop at that,we are getting too far in this discussion and if we continue I would have to move it to P&R .
Btw,Alfas:
My CLS63 base price is $95,900 not $154k but still,it's none of your business how I spend my $$ and it is not relevant to what is happening in this state.

 

Wrong priorities.

 

I'm glad we got that straightened out.