I am not from California, but I love the State and its diversity of cultures and regions. Being from Texas, I know what it feels like to drive for nearly and entire day, but still be in the same state. In fact, it was a driving trip to Los Angeles from Houston that brought me to the reality that driving out of state is for the birds. They have perfectly good airplanes for things just like this. It took more than 17 hours just to get from Houston to El Paso. That’s ridiculous. You can drive from Houston to Atlanta in 13 hours. As usual I am getting a little off course here, but those of you that know me, that is not that unusual.
As I was saying, you can drive forever and still be in Texas. There are only three states that you can experience something like that; Alaska, Texas, and California. California, however, is the only state in which the scenery and the culture changes so quickly and so drastically. Both, Alaska and Texas are extremely beautiful, but much of the drive through Texas is dry country. A drive up the coastline of California is simply extraordinary. I literally love California. There is one issue; however. The cost of living is totally ridiculous. When you compare the cost of living in California to the cost of living in Texas, the differences are astronomical. No wonder there are so many people from Los Angeles living in Texas.
If you know me, you also know that I am not going to be satisfied with simply expressing my concerns over the disparity in the cost of living between these two states, right? I need to know who in the world is determining this cost of living thing. I know that there is some economist somewhere that is going to chime in and give all of these different economic variables and formulas that contribute to the disparity in the cost of living in different geographical locations. Honestly, I’m not trying to hear it. Plus, I have my own theory about economists. By the way, where were you when the last California brush fire was started (inside joke with publisher)?
For what I paid for my little apartment is Marina Del Rey, I could buy a couple of houses in Houston. Let’s not even discuss places like Beverly Hills, Malibu, and Santa Monica. Man, if there is ever a group of people who need insurance, it is the people in California. There are some people that believe that they cannot not afford insurance, the people in California cannot afford not to have insurance.
Anyway, we still haven’t gotten to the answer to my question. Who in the world determines the cost of living? Does anyone have a phone number or email for this person? He probably does not even live in California. Then again, maybe he lives in wine country. There is something going on in wine country. I have not figured it out yet, but give me a little time and I will definitely figure it out.
For those of you that may be sitting there scratching your head, trying to figure out where you got lost in this discussion, don’t worry, it’s not you.
