Hello Dieter!



22 Sep 94 23:20, Dieter Mirbach wrote to Alan Whiteman:



 AW>> If finally hit me that if you weigh up all the

 AW>> important things (positives and negatives), living in the States would

 AW>> be preferable to living here at the arse-end of the world. I mean what



 DM>  Don't kid yourself. The grass always seems greener on the

 DM>  other side, especially when on holiday. You always only see the

 DM>  good side of things.



That is true, but I had previously lived in San Diego for six months

which gave me a slightly more realistic perspective. I was too

parochial back then to accept that California is a better place to

live.



 DM>  It wasn't until I arrived here that I saw the monumental waste

 DM>  of money that gets spend on public servants, and that includes

 DM>  ministers and the associated staff.



 DM>  What a joke, and all those leeches for only 16 million

 DM>  population.



Jeff Kennett had the right idea in completely dissolving a couple of

state government departments.



 AW>> a joke. Australians crow about the natural beauty of this and that,

 AW>> but you've really got to be a fan of scraggy gum trees and boring

 AW>> deserts to claim Australia's got any decent sightseeing. I was out



 DM>  Two minds about this. Yes, there is an overabundance of gum

 DM>  trees. Gum trees for bloody miles. But what about NT and the

 DM>  rain forests. Been there ?



No. Only to Darwin a few times in the navy and it's a horrible place

(both the navy and darwin). I've driven across the Nullabor and that's

a waste of time. Perth is the arse-end at the arse-end of the world as

well (except for Kings Park). Areas in Tassie such as Russell falls and

Mt Wellington are ok but moving down there wouldn't be a viable career

move. There are rain forest areas near where I grew up in SE Qld but

who would want to live in Australias bible belt? For the money it would

take to holiday in the NT, I could take the much preferable option of a

few days in Queenstown NZ or even Hawaii.



 AW>> Australia is a joke in many other ways. To hear the bragging during

 AW>> the Commonwealth games (you wouldn't have heard of this competition)



 DM>  You think Oz stands alone in this ? The yanks have got to be one

 DM>  of the most patriotic and one-eyed nation in the world.



True, but in some respects they have reason to be patriotic.



 AW>> So I returned from holidays with the thought of looking into obtaining

 AW>> a green card. Unfortunately the obstacles were significant - my wife

 AW>> doesn't share my enthusiasm and I couldn't leave my two cats behind.



 DM>  It is no better. But that is only my opinion. I did seriously

 DM>  check into that quite a few years ago, and I spoke to alot of

 DM>  people, albeit in LA and Boston, and it aint all cool and

 DM>  groovy.



I'd be happy to live in Boston.



 DM>  Funnily enough, most of them wanted to immigrate down here, had

 DM>  a gutful of life in the USA. Like I said, greener pastures....



They may have been basing that opinion on a few Qantas ads and movies

like croc-dundee though. Many yanks I've met have expressed a desire to

move here, but IMO a lot of that is a sort of flattery and they don't

mean it seriously. They would quickly miss many of the things they take

for granted.



 AW>> But at that stage I thought, well fuck Fidonet. But now I'm picking

 AW>> up locuser, locsysop and avtech again because it's quite convenient

 AW>> to quickly scan a mail packet every few days, and the RTL/poofter

 AW>> thread is good for a laugh.



 DM>  Once hooked.........



This is about as far as I want to dabble at this stage!



Regards, Alan



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