Is PA depressing? (Houston, Austin, Georgetown: new home, electric bill, heating oil)

[spyrofan]

I've read only a few of the posts here. but must respond that south central Pa is very depressing. I say this because of my personality type is that of a person that doesn't like being trapped in the house during winter/colder months. to me this is October through April. I like to be able to get outside to take walks, go for a drive, take a boat ride, etc. basically, I guess I can say I like warm weather activities is the best way to describe it. and for me, 6 months out of the year not being able to do this is very depressing. and for those of you who are thinking this, yes, I've tried to move to Florida without success obviously. something that may relieve some of these feeling of mine are if I to live near a larger city such as Pittsburgh that had some decent entertainment. in central Pa, my music options are country or heavy rock. both are undesirable in my opinion. then there's the fact that I can drive 10 minutes in any direction and be in a corn field. not very appealing to my eye.
I haven't seen too many occasions of racism around central Pa. I think it exists here, and even remember somebody spray painted some hate messages on cars of our local tv station many years ago. we have many "redneck" people here that might have feelings of racism, but don't really express or act upon it.
overall, I'd say most people are friendly. sometimes, too friendly and don't know when to keep to themselves. but think a majority of people are nice around here....naive and not so smart sometimes, but nice.

[nocturnal rooster]

Most of you know me from the PA forum. I lived in PA for quite a while, and I was unhappy to say the least. This move in the last 2 months nearly killed me, but I had to do it. It was similar to ripping a painful bandaid off, but in a much more dramatic scenario. I am glad to have left the PA prison. Now, I am looking at this thread with the feeling of impunity. I made it out of PA, This year is the first year of the rest of my life. Where I live now, I have a pool, a fitness center, a convenience store 100 yards away from my computer, and a bar that is also 100 yards away from me. And the convenience store sells beer and wine. That's frickin sweet. It is a 15 minute walk to downtown. I don't even need a car to get to where ill be working, or even where i'll be finishing school. So I save gas money, and heat is included in my apt.!

Oh yeah, and all of you that say good riddance, are just jealous and you can eat my dust. I'll still be checkinn into this PA forum to see what propaganda artists are spewing about PA these days. Peace out, and if you need me to come pick you up in PA and take ya somewhere else, just holla.

[danwxman]

Where I live in south central PA isn't depressing at all. I enjoy being so close to major cities but having my own little city in my backyard where I can walk to whatever I want (yay for not having to drive everywhere). There are certain parts of the state I wouldn't live in, but I'm pretty picky.

[danwxman]

Originally Posted by nocturnal rooster

Most of you know me from the PA forum. I lived in PA for quite a while, and I was unhappy to say the least. This move in the last 2 months nearly killed me, but I had to do it. It was similar to ripping a painful bandaid off, but in a much more dramatic scenario. I am glad to have left the PA prison. Now, I am looking at this thread with the feeling of impunity. I made it out of PA, This year is the first year of the rest of my life. Where I live now, I have a pool, a fitness center, a convenience store 100 yards away from my computer, and a bar that is also 100 yards away from me. And the convenience store sells beer and wine. That's frickin sweet. It is a 15 minute walk to downtown. I don't even need a car to get to where ill be working, or even where i'll be finishing school. So I save gas money, and heat is included in my apt.!

Oh yeah, and all of you that say good riddance, are just jealous and you can eat my dust. I'll still be checkinn into this PA forum to see what propaganda artists are spewing about PA these days. Peace out, and if you need me to come pick you up in PA and take ya somewhere else, just holla.

Sounds like you live in some apartment complex. Congratulations! Not like there are any of those in PA, nope no way.

[rural lady]

Weather sucks, but it always seems like gray skies here, i read somewhere we only get so many sunny nice days.

really bad wet/rainy/humid here in central PA this summer.

Left the city years ago, moved out of state, came back for family reasons, hope to move in future.

I'll take the dry desert areas any day, or dry weather, northwest, I don't mind snow, I rather have snow than the summer we are having.

Its no reflection on those who like it, I was born and raised here, but I knew I would leave eventually.

We have 4 seasons so if you don't like the 6 mo. of winter or cold weather, this is not the place for you, being I was born here I know what the weather is like, I don't like it but just deal with it, you sound very unhappy, but any place near PA, new york, ohio etc has cold months, can't do nothing about the weather. sorry

[Tom Lennox 70]

I don't know....often times Pennsylvania does indeed feel very depressing but my only visits have been to the Pittsburgh area (not the city itself) in November when it was very gray and cold.....and two stops in Philly on the way to New York to see the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall (what else LOL). Philly seemed like a true urban jungle and to this day its one of those city names that just conjures up images of urban decay, crime, poverty and boarded up buildings. It wasn't as depressing as New Jersey but still...

And rural western PA also felt very depressing mostly because of the weather, and the popular image of dying coal towns and steel mill certainly don't help much. But I'm pretty sure the same trip on a sunny summer day would not make it look depressign at all. So I guess Pennsylvania has mixed images. I plan on going to Pennsylvania again soon to visit the Flight 93 memorial in Shanksville and Gettysburg Battlefield.

Plus "depressing or not" isn't always just about the economy or weather its about the people too. I do know a lot of people from small towns in PA move to Maryland for job opportunities b/c of economic problems. Most of them have been really wonderful down to Earth people and as much as myself and some friends may complain about Yankees thats really mainly about NJ, NY and Boston. Pennsylvania (except for Philly) is by far my favorite state in the Northeast.

[Stephanie P]

Originally Posted by rural lady

I'll take the dry desert areas any day, or dry weather, northwest, I don't mind snow, I rather have snow than the summer we are having.

We have 4 seasons so if you don't like the 6 mo. of winter or cold weather, this is not the place for you,

I'm sorry, but your summers are nothing compared to the HOT, humid 6 months of summer that we have here in Houston. I would much rather have 6 months of cold and snow than this intolerable heat. We are looking to move to PA in the near future, I hope that it is really not that depressing!

[NWPAguy]

Originally Posted by Stephanie P

I'm sorry, but your summers are nothing compared to the HOT, humid 6 months of summer that we have here in Houston. I would much rather have 6 months of cold and snow than this intolerable heat. We are looking to move to PA in the near future, I hope that it is really not that depressing!

Stephanie, despite your hot and humid Houston summer, I have to ask...

1) Is driving around in Houston on a 100-degree day in a rainstorm anywhere near as dangerous as driving around in PA on a 10-degree day in a snowstorm?
2) Do you have to shovel that rain out of your driveway?
3) Do you have to scrape sunshine off of your car's windows before you depart for work in the morning? (Not applicable if you have a garage that you use for storing your car, of course.)
4) Do you have to deal with $400-$700 monthly heating bills in the winter?
5) Do you suffer from intolerably moist skin in a humid summer, like most people suffer from intolerably dry skin in a naturally much drier winter?
6) How is walking outside from a comfortably air-conditioned house into an "oven" any worse than walking outside from a comfortably heated house into a "blast chiller"?
7) Have you ever had trouble starting your car and driving away quickly on a 100-degree day? Did it need to "warm up" first?
8) Does it really stink that badly that you get to wear light, comfortable clothing all the time during the extreme summer heat?

People will be uncomfortable outside during an excessively hot summer just as they will be uncomfortable outside during an excessively cold winter. That's a given. The truth is that hot weather has many benefits over cold weather. My standpoints, numbered based upon my questions, are as follows. Bear in mind that I have been called "the human furnace" because I have a stratospherically high metabolism and I can keep warm easily when most people are freezing. I sweat like a pig when I'm hot. Hot weather definitely affects me, and not necessarily in pleasant ways.

1) You don't skid around on the road anywhere near as often when it's raining as you do when snow is sticking to it. In a howling rainstorm, you may have to go 5-10 mph below the speed limit. In a howling snowstorm, sometimes you have to go 20 mph PERIOD. By the way, road salt eats cars alive. You don't have that in hot and humid Houston, I don't think.

2) You have to shovel snow. Rain soaks into the ground. When it rains, you can still get out of your driveway easily unless you're totally flooded... and a summer storm that brings enough rain to flood you would probably have dumped three feet of snow (enough to barricade you into your house unless you spend a long time shoveling and snowblowing) had it been a winter storm.

3) Sunshine and heat don't accumulate on a car overnight. Rain can be wiped off with one swish of the wiper. This stands in stark contrast to spending five minutes scraping ice off of your car every freaking morning before you leave. Oh yeah... and if you have a garage (which we do), snow and ice melting off of the car will make the floor a dirty, puddle-dotted mess.

4) Air conditioning bills aren't anywhere near as bad as heating bills. It costs more to heat a house to a certain number of degrees above outside temperature than it does to cool a house to an equal number of degrees below outside temperature. Besides, when the daily average temperature is 95 (105 daytime high, 85 daytime low, which would be considered almost intolerable), you have to cool the house by 25 degrees to get it to a much more comfortable 70. Up here in winter, the daily average temperature is sometimes representable on the fingers of one hand. To heat a house from 5 degrees up to a much more comfortable 65, you have to heat the house by 60 degrees. I don't care about summer electric bills for A/C... winter heating bills are much higher.

5) I don't like PA's disgustingly humid summer but the skin on my hands is happy and healthy. My wife and I rarely take out the hand cream from April through October.

6) It isn't. There's nothing like it being 10 degrees with 50mph winds from a snowstorm. (Up here, that happens at least twice per winter month. You don't get a snowstorm without extreme winds.) That'll give you frostbite in a few minutes if you're not fully covered from head to toe. Even when it's 110 degrees and humid, you won't get heatstroke in a few minutes.

7) Everyone's car starts up quicker in hot weather because internal engine seals have less "clearance" and the thinner fluids flow more easily. Not to mention... A/C takes maybe 15 seconds to get cold... heat takes a good 2-3 minutes at least, while you're driving the car, to get warm. (At idle, it takes even longer than that.)

8) I don't know why people claim to like throwing on multiple layers of heavy clothing until they're the dimensions of the Pillsbury Doughboy after a yearlong diet of Twinkies and they move around with the grace and dexterity of kids in fake sumo suits. Yeah, it's cozy. I'd rather be able to move my limbs through their entire range of motion in a tank top and shorts.

Stephanie, I'm moving from PA to TX next week. I know it's hovering around 100 degrees right now where I'm going to be living... and it'll stay toasty hot until at least October. I won't like that and neither will my wife. However, when I'm still riding my bike and running 5Ks in January and everyone up here is freezing to death and taking the high-colonic from the natural gas companies (or, even worse, the heating oil companies), I hope everyone remembers the comments they made to me about the Texas summer heat.

[dugdogmaster]

Originally Posted by NWPAguy

Stephanie, despite your hot and humid Houston summer, I have to ask...

1) Is driving around in Houston on a 100-degree day in a rainstorm anywhere near as dangerous as driving around in PA on a 10-degree day in a snowstorm?
2) Do you have to shovel that rain out of your driveway?
3) Do you have to scrape sunshine off of your car's windows before you depart for work in the morning? (Not applicable if you have a garage that you use for storing your car, of course.)
4) Do you have to deal with $400-$700 monthly heating bills in the winter?
5) Do you suffer from intolerably moist skin in a humid summer, like most people suffer from intolerably dry skin in a naturally much drier winter?
6) How is walking outside from a comfortably air-conditioned house into an "oven" any worse than walking outside from a comfortably heated house into a "blast chiller"?
7) Have you ever had trouble starting your car and driving away quickly on a 100-degree day? Did it need to "warm up" first?
8) Does it really stink that badly that you get to wear light, comfortable clothing all the time during the extreme summer heat?

People will be uncomfortable outside during an excessively hot summer just as they will be uncomfortable outside during an excessively cold winter. That's a given. The truth is that hot weather has many benefits over cold weather. My standpoints, numbered based upon my questions, are as follows. Bear in mind that I have been called "the human furnace" because I have a stratospherically high metabolism and I can keep warm easily when most people are freezing. I sweat like a pig when I'm hot. Hot weather definitely affects me, and not necessarily in pleasant ways.

1) You don't skid around on the road anywhere near as often when it's raining as you do when snow is sticking to it. In a howling rainstorm, you may have to go 5-10 mph below the speed limit. In a howling snowstorm, sometimes you have to go 20 mph PERIOD. By the way, road salt eats cars alive. You don't have that in hot and humid Houston, I don't think.

2) You have to shovel snow. Rain soaks into the ground. When it rains, you can still get out of your driveway easily unless you're totally flooded... and a summer storm that brings enough rain to flood you would probably have dumped three feet of snow (enough to barricade you into your house unless you spend a long time shoveling and snowblowing) had it been a winter storm.

3) Sunshine and heat don't accumulate on a car overnight. Rain can be wiped off with one swish of the wiper. This stands in stark contrast to spending five minutes scraping ice off of your car every freaking morning before you leave. Oh yeah... and if you have a garage (which we do), snow and ice melting off of the car will make the floor a dirty, puddle-dotted mess.

4) Air conditioning bills aren't anywhere near as bad as heating bills. It costs more to heat a house to a certain number of degrees above outside temperature than it does to cool a house to an equal number of degrees below outside temperature. Besides, when the daily average temperature is 95 (105 daytime high, 85 daytime low, which would be considered almost intolerable), you have to cool the house by 25 degrees to get it to a much more comfortable 70. Up here in winter, the daily average temperature is sometimes representable on the fingers of one hand. To heat a house from 5 degrees up to a much more comfortable 65, you have to heat the house by 60 degrees. I don't care about summer electric bills for A/C... winter heating bills are much higher.

5) I don't like PA's disgustingly humid summer but the skin on my hands is happy and healthy. My wife and I rarely take out the hand cream from April through October.

6) It isn't. There's nothing like it being 10 degrees with 50mph winds from a snowstorm. (Up here, that happens at least twice per winter month. You don't get a snowstorm without extreme winds.) That'll give you frostbite in a few minutes if you're not fully covered from head to toe. Even when it's 110 degrees and humid, you won't get heatstroke in a few minutes.

7) Everyone's car starts up quicker in hot weather because internal engine seals have less "clearance" and the thinner fluids flow more easily. Not to mention... A/C takes maybe 15 seconds to get cold... heat takes a good 2-3 minutes at least, while you're driving the car, to get warm. (At idle, it takes even longer than that.)

8) I don't know why people claim to like throwing on multiple layers of heavy clothing until they're the dimensions of the Pillsbury Doughboy after a yearlong diet of Twinkies and they move around with the grace and dexterity of kids in fake sumo suits. Yeah, it's cozy. I'd rather be able to move my limbs through their entire range of motion in a tank top and shorts.

Stephanie, I'm moving from PA to TX next week. I know it's hovering around 100 degrees right now where I'm going to be living... and it'll stay toasty hot until at least October. I won't like that and neither will my wife. However, when I'm still riding my bike and running 5Ks in January and everyone up here is freezing to death and taking the high-colonic from the natural gas companies (or, even worse, the heating oil companies), I hope everyone remembers the comments they made to me about the Texas summer heat.

I have a tip for you in reference to question 4 you asked. Have you ever heard of budgeting your heating bill? It's real simple, and your gas company is happy to do it for you, it's only a 5 minute phone call. At the end of the summer months or even early fall, when your heating bill is at it's lowest, call the gas company and have them switch over your billing to the budgeted type. It averages the last 4 months of your billings. Therefore, you will not be paying 400-700 dollars a month on heating. Then come spring time when it starts to warm back up again, switch back over to regular billing. I don't even pay 200 dollars a month on heating during the winter months. I usually switch over to the budget billing around late September early October, then back to normal billing at the end of April.

[Stephanie P]

I do have to explain that I have lived in Michigan also. Now, I do not know which is colder, but MI did get a lot of snow. In a big snow storm, the plow trucks made driving very possible. I did have to shovel quit a bit of snow from the driveway and off my car, but it did not bother me.

My A/C bill in the summer averages about $350-400 a month. My parents, who have a bigger home, average $500-550 a month. The A/C comes on in April and does not go off until November.

So, to each his own. I prefer the cold and am looking forward to getting out of this heat.

I wish you the best of luck with your move to Texas. I do hope you and your wife enjoy living here.