I have escaped to California until further notice. Rural Louisiana is entirely too hard to take but check this out: I wrote an entire book review on the plane, because the world of reason begins (people do not understand this, but they just do not know) at the Texas state line. All bets are off further east.
One forgets, traveling for work and overburdened in airports, traveling at odd hours, what it is to fly across the United States in the middle of the day, on a sunny day in winter. The plains with round fields covered with snow, the snowy Rockies, the salt lake, the brown west. It is an amazing thing we do routinely now, and forget.
When you are in New York on a clear day it is a nice day in the city but such days are also known to be excellent for flying to California.
I walked out of the airport and got into BART, strolled down Market Street to the ferry building and sailed off, admiring the new Bay Bridge. The boat was a speeding catamaran.
#OccupyHE
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
Yes, the west is the best. Those who are stuck in other parts of the country don’t like to admit that. We did our time in godawful Madison, or the five lost years, as I call them, so I’m saying this with real experience of the horrors of life in the Midwest. The climate, the small-minded people: no thanks!
Enjoy yourself!
Is Madison really that bad? I actually like the Midwest, loved the time I spent at UIUC, but Madison is of course colder and I have heard they are very moralistic there. I’d give a lot to be there, actually, over Louisiana and so on, for a library and things like that, perhaps I idealize. A friend just moved to Milwaukee to escape Lawrence, Kansas, and is talking about how much more open and happy it is in comparison.