Home vs. "home"

Vacation. Wow, this is great. Last night, I was actually *bored*. We had watched all our Netflix movies (Freaks and Geeks), I had tootled around on the Internet to a sufficient degree, and I didn't have any really pressing homework. So I did dishes.

We are going home to both our families tomorrow, and we couldn't be more excited. It's been way too long since we've seen our family and I miss everybody.

I was thinking about one thing that is easy as pie here that if we want to do it either in Vegas or in Reno, will be much more of a hassle: shopping. There are a bunch of sales going on right now, and I'm in the market for a new coat, but I don't have time to make it to the stores before we leave. However, if I want to go shopping here, I can either literally walk two blocks to a mall, or take an easy ten minute drive up to an incredibly nice mall with every store you could ever want (with plenty of parking).

In Nevada, shopping is concentrated in certain areas, which are near to no one. Every one of the city's half-million plus residents (more in Vegas) has to go to one of these areas in order to do any decent shopping at all, and so you must battle traffic, horrid parking lots and a bajillion people just to get something. It makes me very appreciative of our shopping situation here.

Another contrast between Reno (and probably Vegas too ) and Colorado. A giant new store just opened in Reno (Cabela's) and because this store was so hotly anticipated, some VIPs got to shop early. The VIPs included not only the governor, but also city council members. If Boulder city council members ever got treated so well, I'm sure there would be an instantaneous outcry form the populace and there would probably be some recall-age. In fact, I don't think city council members would even accept such an invitation because of the implications of cronyism and all that rot that they know would immediately come up. Not that the same actions in Reno don't spur the same feelings in citizens (since we all do know that pretty much all the politicians will do *anything* for the beloved business community), but people in Reno are too busy working and raising families and paying bills to do anything about their feelings. So the cronyism continues.

Not saying one is better or worse, but living in a different place can sure give you better perspective on home.