Where is the Snow?

It's weird how perspectives change. My friend was telling me how he spent two hours shoveling his back car into his driveway. As he unfolded his tale of woe, I couldn’t help but miss the snow. Somebody had earlier described to me that LA feels like a time warp where the lack of seasons offer no clue to the passage of time. I remember seeing coniferous evergreens strapped on cars and wondering why so many people drove around with trees, only to realize it was almost Christmas. It would be nice to see the first snowfall again.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t miss shoveling.

Land of Giants

A comment from Chris G had brought back fond memories of reality. They don’t call this the land of excess for no reason. From the country that brought you the Hummer, the restaurants reflect the big ass American dream.

Back in Canada, I gained a lot of weight after forcing myself to finish my food portions in restaurants. The portions were just a bit too big, but doable almost every time. This behaviour can be attributed to my Mom who always described colourful pictures of hungry starving Africans at every unfinished meal. My American stint resulted in losing 30lbs. Not because the portions are smaller but they are designed for giants. I quickly became accustomed to throwing out food, which resulted in eating less by not even attempting to finish. Believe me, getting me to throw out food is not easy, yet somehow it’s now a regular thing.

Words will do no justice to the unbelievable sizes. Instead I have opted for pictures for this blog. And yes, these are all places in California.

California Economics.

Anybody who knows me will know that I am a champion of Capitalism. My thinking is that there should be no limits or taxes on making more money. By allowing this, the economy attracts and drives productive individuals who eventually spread wealth by best allocating capital. The assumption being that productive individuals allocate capital that generates the most wealth and eventually spreads throughout the population. For example, cell phones were the domain of the rich but now its infrastructure is used by all.

Lately, I feel some flaws in this thinking as pangs of yuppie guilt hit me when seeing the amount of wastage going on here. By far, California is the richest state with Gross State Product clocking in at $1,621,843 million and exceeding second place Texas by over 60%. Incidentally, California GSP exceeds all of Canada’s GDP. So what do Californians do with this wealth?

Perhaps the most interesting sight of wastage was during my walk in Santa Monica near Christmas. Everybody wants a white Christmas, but what happens when living in a place that never snows? The answer provided by the City of Santa Monica is to truck in snow every few hours into the middle of a busy shopping district. There was a moment of disbelief to see children making snowmen and throwing snowballs in near 20c weather. In Beverly Hills, there is a $20,000 mattress for sale. The rationale behind this mattress goes as follows: “You can pay $50,000 for a car and is only used a couple hours in a day. A mattress is used 7-8 hours per day in your life and only costs half that. Hence it’s a good investment”.

Yeah.