re: What y’all planning to do with your gummit checks?

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Calgrad, how in the world do evil, shameless politicians like Feinstein and Nancy Pelosi keep getting re-elected out there? It's one thing to be liberal, and another to hold up emergency stimulus for political gain and a personal wish list of pork.

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Unfortunately, there's a lack of personal responsibility here. I live in Ventura County, which leans towards being more conservative. However, out of the 53 districts that we have in the state, 45 to 46 of them are heavily liberal. Most Californian's are free wheeling so the focus and firmness of conservative thinking does not "vibe" with their way of life. The hippie culture still reigns supreme, as that group had children and passed down their beliefs from the 60s. Those beliefs still permeate our state.

I'm not saying that either way of thinking is right or wrong, but the liberal way tends to lead to Californians taking an inordinate amount of abuse, by politicians, before they take measures to stem the losses. For example, when I moved back, I was hit with a tax of 12.5% of my earnings. This was not only present and future earnings, the state made it retroactive, so it hit my earnings back to when I started my business travels. Very few complained, and it is active until this day. Our gas tax is about 0.80/gallon. We had a vote to approve or deny that increase for road repairs. It was approved. The worst part is that it does not have to be used for road repairs (it's not). It can be directed toward some climate change nonsense that the state can bury.

I grew up with a military officer father and spent my younger years at Nellis and Eglin AFBs, so I was naive to this way of life. It took a while before I was resigned to the fact that CA will never change.

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Do you happen to know who the Zodiac Killer is?

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Yes, but we met through mutual friends, and he stopped coming around.

His first killing was about a decade and a half before I was born. Seriously, I do know a woman that was related to one of the female lake victims. She's from Vallejo.

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That's why I think states should be broken up more, maybe something along the lines of city-state model. I imagine if LA, San Fran, etc. broke off and became their own entities, the rest of the state wouldn't veered so far to the left.

Oddly, enough Neel Kashkari ran for governor awhile back and now he's one of the fed big wigs that might help bankrupt this country. He got first bit of fame as the no.2 guy on TARP.

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What's tough about California is that the there are pockets of Republican leaning areas within major Democratic strongholds. For instance, Orange County leans heavily to the right --which is my preference to live if I would not have to take the 405 to the 101-- while LA is heavy left. San Diego, currently, has a Republican mayor.

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How did you come to learn that this person was a relative of an attack victim?

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I was a consultant working at a hospital in NorCal. There was a supply chain director that I worked with, closely. I don't remember how it commenced, but one of my colleagues and I started talking about freaks from Berkeley: naked guy, unabomber, etc. Someone brought up a professor that was accused of being the Zodiac or affiliated with him. The director chimed in that when she was a kid her cousin was a Zodiac victim. It aligns, timewise, because she had to be in her mid 50s. This was 2014 or 2015

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Public Policy professor Michael O'Hare

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That's about as much as I know about the story.

NorCal is stranger than SoCal, and Berkeley is the epicenter. At Memorial, there's this area called Tightwad Hill. It took a while to get new facilities because people would climb into the trees so that they could not be razed. The school and UC system had to compromise with the students so that it could be done. We, also, had the lowest graduation rate --at a top 15 university-- of any football program in the PAC-10. Thanks for this. It brings back some strange memories.

Actually, I’d love to hear more about your time at Berkeley. What was it like being one of the few blacks on campus? Where you conservative at that time? What was that like on a campus like Berkeley? What were the professors like? Was there anyone at Berkeley worth hanging out and having a steak and a stogie with?

The California Governor announced that 4 big banks in the state agreed to defer mortgage payments for at least 3 months.

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When were you at Cal?

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03 - 06

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How did that work? Were you in one of the extensions?

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When I was in, which may be different now, you could take classes on base. Every base at the time had courses offered through Univ of Texas, U of Maryland, and Mich St. as well as local colleges in the state you were stationed at. While also covering tuition at 75%. I spent 6 years in Cali and during that time took as many courses as I could. I was able to also test out of and combined with high SAT scores and AP scores was accepted basically as a junior.

It still took over 8 years do to constant deployment though to finish my gen eds.

Gotta ask how a former Cal athlete wound up on the 'Bama board.