Welcome to your new forum!

You guys are sick puppies! Not to mention that you're probably scaring off prospective new members on this thread!

Happy Father's Day to you as well Dave, and to all the other great dads on this forum!

I hope this is the "new members" thread SK80 asked me to post in. If not, maybe you can move it.

So ... I'm Foggy, and here's a little about me:

Connection to Orange County: lived there from 1984 to 2002, after graduating from USC law school. Worked for a top-100 civil firm, in the Public Defender's office, and on my own. Criminal defense and civil litigation. Lived in Tustin, Irvine, Foothill Ranch, other cities. Married in '94 in Laguna Beach, later we adopted two boys in Fresno who are both in college today getting straight As. Joined OCConnect 12 years ago, and got to know John Q. Public pretty well because I run a forum that uses the same software OCConnect uses. He told me to look at this site.

Now: living in North Carolina, my wife and I sell health insurance, including but definitely not limited to Obamacare. This is the third business we've run together. We've been married coming up on 27 years, I'm starting to like her a little.

I'm a progressive Democrat, and an activist -- on some committees, do a lot of volunteer work. I worked for Liz Warren before the primary, and I was disappointed that Biden won, but I already voted for him. I like Harris.

I'm 68, work out 5 hours a week, swim every day from mid-May to mid-September. When I practiced law I was a smoker and a drinker and weighed 280 and was heading for an early heart attack. Now I weigh 190, don't drink, don't smoke, my only vice is coffee and I cut back on that when we went into self-quarantine in March. I'm living in a cocoon, but when I emerge I plan to be a butterfly. Three cats, and my hobby is woodworking, when I get around to it. And polly ticks, of course. And I do some web design.

I think that's enough.

My dad was not really political, but he was a lifelong Republican and an officer in the US Navy. We were miles apart when I was in high school just outside our nation's capital, protesting against the Vietnam War and Nixon. A friend of his called him up and said, "Let's go protest the military-industrial complex." My dad said, "Bob, I am the military-industrial complex."

Now he and I are on the same page, politically. He voted for Obama twice. He already voted for Biden. Fifty years later, he really matured and got a better understanding of polly ticks, thanks to me.

It's too early to know what will happen to my kids. The younger one doesn't pay much attention, but his older brother votes Democratic.

There are a few things I miss about SoCal. The Double Western Bacon Cheeseburger with fried zucchini at Carl's Jr. is one of them. The nice weather is another. I can still bodysurf, but the surf is crappy here. But there are a lot of things I don't miss, too.

We had an eighth-of-an-acre lot in Foothill Ranch with a very nice house on it, but you could reach out the window and shake hands with the next-door neighbor. When we adopted two boys, I wanted to put up a swing set, but you have to have 8 feet of clearance front and back, because kids jump off the swings. There was no place in our tiny yard that had enough space to do that, but I sorta fit one in anyway. When we sold that place and moved here, we spent 2/3 of the money we got for it and got .95 acres of land and a bigger house. We're surrounded by woods and there's a river about a quarter mile away. My driveway is 130 yards long, so my kids could learn to ride bikes without getting near the street. 

It's not SoCal, but I can drive to the beach or up into the mountains in less than 3 hours. We average about 2 inches of snow the entire winter. There's enough Mexican food to keep me alive. Every November I think maybe we didn't move far enough south, but I've lived through 17 winters here and it's not so bad.

I was born in Monterey, CA, back before it was a rich man's town. My dad was in the Navy, we had a very small home. So I'm a native Californian. I can ride a horse, shoot a gun, and I consider myself a Westerner through and through. But I like NC, too. Being in a Navy family, I lived all over. My parents had 5 kids, all born in different cities. I've lived in 11 states. This one is pretty good. Maybe someday I'll move closer to the beach. 

And hay, I hear Orange County turned blue over the many years since I've been gone. Yowza! 

Huh...

It will be terrific if we find a progressive democrat former lawyer can argue a given topic, intelligently.

That will indeed be rare.

You barely have a conservative one that can do that... ribbit

Looking forward to some exchanges between lawyers.