Questor wrote:@Chocs
I live in South Orange County, not LA proper. The idea of attending a symphony in San Diego horrifies me, and you should be commended for trying. The symphony should also be commended for attempting to bring culture to a city that almost personifies (and I use that word intentionally) Jeff Foxworthy's definition of redneck: "A glorious absence of sophistication."
I love the arrogance of a certain segment of the San Diego population, particularly the - shall we say - well to do group out in the hills. I remember once when I was in town for a convention and somehow ended up getting gas over by the USMC recruit depot (or maybe the old grumman factory, not really important). A guy (pretty sure he was a USMC Vietnam vet, from the tatoo on his arm) walked up and asked if I had a few bucks for a disabled vet. I had the cash a couple dollars cash, so I gave it to him. Then a guy in a business suit and a Porsche proceeds to lecture me on how there's no such thing as homeless veterans and the guy must be a scammer, because unlike those damn eurocommies, we take care of our soldiers. Whether the guy was a vet or not actually didn't figure into me giving him the money, but this dude driving a quarter-million dollar car needed to inform me about getting scammed.
This is also the group that decided to sue the state about school fees. No Joke, the big ACLU lawsuit about school fees in California (however you feel about them), was started because some Tea Party (based on geography) nuts weren't getting a free-enough education. Not south-central, not Santa Ana, not Riverside, but wealth San Diego.
San Diego was a funny place. It's just gorgeous, plus it has a nude beach with hang gliders flying overhead, over by UCSD..what's not to like? The desert's an hour away, skiing is three hours away, canyons for jogging, mountains for camping and astronomy, great sushi, beautiful beaches, and so on. But. My wife grew up a New Yorker and I grew up just outside DC, and we were shocked when we moved there...they fucking rolled up the sidewalks at 2AM, even downtown and in Pacific Beach. 'Course, Tampa's even worse, but we're older now and San Diego acclimated us to slowness.
You're right on about the hill denizens. When I lived in Pacific Beach, people made no bones about it: they lived there to drink, fuck, lie on the beach, smoke pot, and generally be beach bums. Jobs were nice but not their focus. Then I moved to the UTC area, near UCSD. People there
insisted they lived in La Jolla even though it was a canyon, interstate, and 50% property value differential away. Stupid fucking wannabes; THOSE were my neighbors. I never thought I'd say this, but the Mormon Temple that was built there in the mid 90s brought a little class and less pretentiousness to the area. Rancho Bernardo was almost as bad, people who lived there thought that just because there was a "Rancho" in the ZIP code identifier (it was unincorporated San Diego County IRL) meant they were half a step from Rancho Santa Fe. The forehead sunburns from all the noses in the air were something to behold.
Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of good memories of California: racing sailboats off the coast, sushi in PB, driving my bike up Mount Soledad with a chica on the saddle behind me, driving my bike through sweeping curves and mountain and desert roads in eastern San Diego County, flying to Catalina, banging off Desert Eagle rounds in the deserts, running through the canyons to stay in shape, checking out/dating the beautiful people, etc. What ultimately made the difference for my wife and I in San Diego was the quality of the people. We had more, equally fond memories of other places we'd lived that accumulated over shorter periods of time, and they were all associated with good people. Good people seem hard to find in SoCal.
"We've already had this discussion before. I treated you of barbaric caveman then." - Oxymoron
"He killed 80 people in 2 days"
"...he's adopted." - The Avengers