In Need of a Pep Talk (Scranton, Wilkes-Barre: real estate, housing, hotel)

[ScranBarre]

Originally Posted by weluvpa

Paul that is just life! We all have days like that. Some more than others but getting all bent out shape over things that you cannot change is whats going to kill you.
No matter where you are, you will have things that you don't like and can't change.

Yes. The difference though is that in some areas change IS a possibility whereas in others change is far-fetched, at best. Want to make West Side look better? Apply for a grant and give it a new streetscape. Want to give firefighters much needed retro-active pay raises? Elect fresh blood into office. Want to stop flooding? Build a levee.

Want to stop racism? What do you do here? Dr. King failed in the 1960s to bridge the cultural gap between whites and blacks and paid with his life, and now in the 1990s-2000s others have been failing at bridging the gap between straights and non-straights. In the late-1990s a black man was drug behind a truck by a bunch of white rednecks in Jasper, TX. In the late-1990s a young gay male by the name of Matthew Shepard was beaten to a bloody pulp, disrobed, and tied to a fence post in Laramie, Wyoming to bleed to death along the road side. We nearly saw riots erupting in Jena, Louisiana recently when white high school students tied nooses around a tree branch to intimidate their black peers (they likely got this bright idea from their moronic parents no doubt).

If people have been trying since the 1960s to improve relations amongst different people with no success, then what makes people think that it will happen during my lifetime? Some of the worst neo-Nazism I've endured was from my peers, indicating that Generations X and Y might not be as "hip" and "enlightened" as they claim to be. Yes, these are all NATIONAL problems, but local reaction to such incidents saddens me. While most were OUTRAGED to hear about the Shepard murder, for example, around here I barely heard a peep about it. Why? Silently most people around here probably thought it wasn't a big deal, much as with how my co-workers felt the need to ridicule gays with that nasty Heath Ledger AIDS comment (I'm still considering approaching HR about this, but I don't want to cause even MORE problems in the long-run).

Perhaps I just need to go out and get a drink or something. I don't know. All I know is that my one-week banishment was the WORST thing that ever happened to me because all I did during that week was reflect upon life and arrive at some unhappy conclusions. In a way I now regret spending so much time on this forum trying to promote a region I've now fallen out of love with. It's almost as if I'm breaking a romantic relationship up or something---that's the feeling inside of me right now.

[CHS89]

He's more of a dim bulb than a bright light, to be honest. Not you, Paul...

(Hope I don't get sued for that)

[weluvpa]

You really are a funny guy! No really your funny. Paul figure it out, only you can. Hey CHS89 was that part in the The Sound of Music? Are one of Paul's protected 3?

[ScranBarre]

Originally Posted by CHS89

He's more of a dim bulb than a bright light, to be honest. Not you, Paul...

(Hope I don't get sued for that)

No lawsuit here. I don't see a point in suing anyone for every little thing; life's too short. I was even rear-ended so badly in mid-2006 that I had neck pain so severe that I couldn't work for a few days. Did I sue for lost wages, pain and suffering, etc.? No. Why? I don't see a point in punishing people for honest mistakes (in this sense the guy simply didn't know you needed to stop at a blinking red light and WHAM!) Even with that blood-boiling Heath Ledger/gay/AIDS conversation I had to endure at work, I will most certainly not bring it to the attention of HR. Why should I? All it would do is create more bad blood. A lot of people in NEPA let small things get under their skin forever and hold grudges forever---just look at how Fay Franus will whip out a piece of paper to slam Judy for something she did or said YEARS ago as if it were a pressing issue! After a certain period of time you just have to let certain things drop for your own health's sake; it's not healthy at all to have anger/resentment building up inside of you for so long. This is why when I need to vent I blast Coldplay and crash a few cars on GTA---no harm done! LOL!

On second thought, were you referencing pathological plaintiff Pilchesky instead of me with the lawsuit comment? If so, then I just rambled on and on and ON for nothing (what a surprise!)

[ScranBarre]

Originally Posted by weluvpa

Are one of Paul's protected 3?

Huh? I never saw the Sound of Music, so perhaps I'm just out of the loop! LOL!

[Chefkey]

I gotta tell you further if you think you are facing diversity issues here, wait until you try some of the other places you spoke of. If you really think moving is something you need to do then by all means give it a try. These places you think will be more gay friendly or otherwise tolerant will have their other issues. $500,000 dollar homes, water shortages, mudslides, earthquakes, truly dangerous crime, massive gangs, beggars...

I could go on an on about what you don't have here in Nepa but if you really feel you think you can find happiness elsewhere then you need to try.

[to570717]

not a joke: today in the news here in sunny Fla, 3 guys break into a house. owners start shooting. kill 2 of them. Third guy runs a get caught. Cops show up, turns out the house is a grow house with tons of weed. owners get murder charges and drug charges. Now when was the last time that happend in Throop!

[weluvpa]

We just had to armed home invasions in the last two weeks here in Scranton. Both with bandanas around their faces and both with guns and knives.

[CHIP72]

SWB - to be honest with you I think you would have better served going to college outside your home area, if you have/had the financial ability to do so. I'd say that to EVERYONE who goes to college, regardless where they are from. Going to a different area can make you appreciate both different locations and the location where you are from, and give you some new insights and ideas about places. I'm originally from the Lehigh Valley (and grew up in one of those God foresaken suburban subdivisions where you can't go anywhere worth going to without a car), and if I hadn't gone to college in central PA in a small, rural town (Huntingdon, PA), I would have never realized what isolated, rural, fairly depressed areas were like, nor would I have understood the benefits of living in a town as opposed to a single use subdivision. Going to a different location for college (and for that matter graduate school) had real benefits for me IMO; it made me understand and appreciate the differences between areas better. Perhaps by taking a step back from the SWB area, you could grow to appreciate it more, or conversely realize that ISN'T the place you want to be. You don't know what will happen until you live somewhere else, but living elsewhere can help you learn and grow in ways that people who remain in the same area all their lives likely will not.

If it makes you feel any better, if I was forced to live in PA the rest of my life and could not live south and/or east of the Blue Mountain, I'd definitely pick the SWB area to live (well, it might be second behind State College, but I'm not sure about that).

[ScranBarre]

Originally Posted by coartist88

Like the song says" you had a bad day" You are a bright, intelligent young man with a bright future and a plan,If you plan to continue to suceed in life you must get a thicker skin and let things just roll off of you. Everyone on this forum is entitled to their own opinion, I may not agree with it, but I will fight for their right to say it ( freedom of speech) I am telling you this as advice from a friend, I have seen the best, and the worst in people through my life. The areas are booming, just hang in there and stick with your plan,Do you know how many bad days I had with this miserable job! dealing with the scum of society, but after a while I came to terms with it and learned how to deal with things, and stuck to my PLAN! You said you had a plan about buying a home by 2010, You know how many people shot down my plan 20 years ago, in my 20's when I took this job, but I kept focused,knew what I had to do. all my friends said I was CRAZY and laughed for taking this job, but I had a PLAN and I wasn't going to let NEGATIVE people disrupt my plan
P.S 20 years later this is how my plan worked out.. getting a good pension with other income investments I have made, 2 homes, great family, never have to work unless I want to, do you know what my friends are doing? they will have to work for the rest of their life, because they had NO PLAN and were quick to shoot down mine, So you have to decide, are you going to have a plan in life and be happy, or worry about what everybody say and thinks, because the reason I was sucessful was unless your opinion was helpful to me or positive, I could care less what anyone thought about me!
You really have to take one day at a time and not take this forum to heart,You have really helped me alot with all sorts of info and I appreciate it but please take advice from me and don't take this too serious, stick to a plan,and who cares what people think...I never did I hope this helped you

Thanks. This did help quite a bit, and it's nice to see someone who had a dream and life goals see them come into fruition to the point where sweet rewards were able to be reaped at a (relatively) young age.

I've always taken things a bit too personally. When I was very young (elementary school) my family was I suppose what you would call "lower middle class." We always had food on the table and heat in the winter, but there were no "frills." I'd get made fun of because I attended a relatively affluent school district but didn't have access to the latest designer clothing (hence why I'm a proponent of school uniforms to mitigate this). I'm pretty open-minded and laid-back (believe it or not) so I DID make some friends who ran on both ends of the socioeconmic spectrum. This helped me immensely when I finally did become a social butterfly in my senior year of high school while the former "popular" kids faded into obscurity. I was bullied for EVERYTHING growing up---having freckles, having crooked teeth, having goofy hair, my old-fashioned first name, my feminine surname, having an angry father, etc., etc. This eventually took its toll on me to the point where I now trust very few people and don't let things slide off of my shoulders very easily. Oddly enough when I finally "came out" in my senior year of high school my popularity blossomed, but I DID face some rather unwanted bullying for that as well.

Running is my catharsis. When the weather is pleasant, and I can run nine miles daily, my attitude greatly improves (hence why I do my photo tours generally only during the warmer months). I think I might have mild seasonal affective disorder. I LOVE the snow, but due to global warming we haven't had much snow here in NEPA in a good 6-7 years now. It seems like EVERY storm we've had so far this season (including the one we just finished up with) has had more rain/slop than true snow. In a sense then I get "down" because you can no longer look forward to snowy winters. Having my eyes light up as I look outside the window at the big fluffy flakes falling always got me through the non-running winter doldrums, but now that's no longer possible. Even our next big storm on Sunday night is supposed to be mostly sleet/rain, not snow. After that we're practically in March, and I'll be running by the end of the month. What happened to getting snow in PA??!!! As of right now I'm just rambling on and on like an idiot, but it's just been hard making grandiose plans and having wonderful dreams for 6-8 years now only to see them all fall apart.