Canada & Seattle Weather

Just got back from Richmond last nite. Did some thinking whilst driving. Having been to Canada many times now I realize something. The country did not become it's own until 1982. They were a British colony all this time and I didn't know it.

I'm trying to figure out why every time I go inside store it is all filled with American musics, clothing, culture, etc. Where is the Canadian culture? Canadian people seem very proud of their country.

I looked it up: 33 million people live in Canada. Contrast with Los Angeles County with 9.8 million. New York city has 8 million people. That's more than half the population of Canada tied up in two metropolitan areas in the U.S. I think this is one big reason why Canadians have not offered much in terms of contribution to the world.

Also, I think their government is very strict. The fiscal and monetary policies are some of the most conservative on the earth. I'm learning that having tight control over the money and fiscal policy can have damaging results on growth. If everyone were forced to put down 20% on their homes before purchase, few people would own homes and growth would be stifled.

Coupled with the fact that Canadians pay between 25 and 30% of their income as tax and you can see that it's hard for Canadians to be venture capitalists when they are struggling just to keep afloat. The gov cracked own on internet use requiring ISP's to only allow 25GB downloads per month. That's really small compared to U.S. which offers unlimited for most ISP's. How can people be allowed to do what they want, or need to do if they cannot even access the internet? http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/01/canada-gets-first-bitter-dose-of-metered-internet-billing.ars

Other thoughts

Seattle is boring. I realize that's why I keep going back to Richmond and Vancouver. The food is pretty good in some places but the overall ambience is largely blasee. I guess you could say it's like being out in farmsville, only there aren't any farms. After 9p everything shuts down, nothing is open except the bars in Belletown.

Even my guru at the Redmond temple says Seattle is boring. He's now in Taiwan where it's dirtier, but much more exciting. I guess you could say Richmond and Vancouver draw comparisons with San Francisco. They both have huge asian populations.

I realized coming from SF, if my friends or family visited Vancouver or Richmond, it would not be a big deal. There are so many asians in SF and it's already so exciting, Vancouver would just come off as another big city to them, although I must say, Vancouverites are more friendly than San Franciscans.

I read article about the founder of Google, Sergey Brin. He's an ideas guy who isn't afraid to speak his mind. Early in the company's history a marketing guy was doing a speech and saying that the company's competitors were catching up to Google and they had to do something to differentiate themselves by doing some clever marketing.

Brin simply said, "if we don't have the best quality product, maybe we don't deserve to win." I think most of the people around Seattle tend to be more like the marketing guy and people from SF tend to be more like Brin. People around here really aren't brash and outspoken. CA seems to have a way of cultivating ideas and individuality like no other place. I think people who aren't from CA, like those on the east coast, have a difficult time understanding this.

I haven't spend much time on the east coast, but it seems the biggest movers and shakers in the tech industry are all on the west coast, with very little to nothing coming from the east coast.

It seems to me, the east coast is all about politics which would make sense, because the political seat of power is on the east coast. But it seems to me that people seem to be afraid of going against the grain on the east coast for fear of being labelled as an outcast, whereas people in the Bay Area have no problem with going against the current. Unfortunately this has resulted in people around the nation chiding California for being a group of whacked out liberals, which they kind of are.

Last thing. I was driving back home through Seattle and had to turn the heat down a couple notches. I immediately noticed it had gotten warmer. For some reason the city of Seattle is warmer than the other areas. For some reason, it also gets less rainfall than the surrounding communities. It seems weird. I only noticed this because it was pointed out by the weather newscasters on tv who said that chief Seattle was a genius for locating his Native American tribe in that location (because it got less rain than the surrounding areas).

I guess it could very well be possible that the city of Seattle actually gets less rainfall than say, San Francisco. This might apply to Seattle proper, but I can guarantee you, it does not apply to the region in general. We are always getting rained on over here.