Riverside Residence Verification Form - City Of Riverside: Fill & Download for Free

It's going to take me a while to flesh this answer out, because like the proverbial blindmen trying to describe an elephant, it can be answered in multiple ways (like Rashomon in a way). I'll try to give you a couple ways of seeing various answers to the question.So I'm a 3rd generation Californian, born in the same hospital in Los Angeles that my mom was (my Dad was born in Montana and raised with my uncles in Utah and further grew up in Chicago). I've also worked with 7-8 generation Californians. So during WW2 mom was allowed to finish high school (Los Angeles High, later used as the backdrop for the series Room 222) and started internment in a horse stable in Santa Anita Race Track.One way to answer this question is to give observations I had in life about life elsewhere like: one of my first plane trips when I was young was to Salt Lake City, UT. This trip and later numerous business trip to Washington DC surprised me by the number of brick (dirty brick from when coal was burned more) buildings and structures. Europe had similar coal stained buildings with other older materials as well.Many people elsewhere value the old, tried and tired, and staid. California is one of the places where a 20 year old can become a billionaire with good reason.California homes and buildings are code covered from a 1925 and a 1933 earthquake standard. We use more stucco, glass, steel, and brick (where it appears) are mostly found in few remaining chimneys. At least 3 friends own and live in geodesic dome homes (or have an attached dome). One friend lives out of 2 tee pees (no, she is not a native American, and she used to own an Alaskan wolf, oh that's another issue). Several friends own and raise what might be termed wild animals (one professionally for use in the TV and movie industry (another acquaintance owned 200 armored vehicles (tanks and more) used in various movies)).Until recently, ranch style homes had more yard space. I grew up with a front yard and a back yard where we kept 3 desert tortoises (you can't take them as pets anymore) and variously dogs, cats, a chicken (got small eggs), etc. Now you can only find homes like that in the Central Valley.The main population centers in California are the Los Angeles corrador which depending how you count extends South to San Diego and NW to Ventura, or Santa Barbara ...Santa Maria, SLO ... or ... and the San Francisco Bay Area. The population centers have a democratic (note small 'd') emphasis which make them think everything is for them (this is the story of the country mouse versus the city mouse). I'll say a little more about that in the next section. Of course there is all kinds of weird music about all these California locations.One difference: odor, if and when you travel South into Mexico, south past Ensenada (but you can experience this South of TJ if you go in land into the mountains (which go up to 9-10K ft), you don't smell the trash burns in the country side. The odors are different in a number of ways, and you can experience them when you get here. The LA Basin was where Arnie H-Smit did his first studies on smog, and I can recall seeing the San Gab (Mtns) when we switched to un-Pb gasoline for cars. LA Basin smog is bad for the topography (the highest point of LA County is over 10K ft, and the highest point in So Cal is over 11.5K ft, and the lowest pass is just over 2K ft (from sea level). People have proposed tunnels with fans.Life has a considerable Spanish/Mexican motif. The differences are slight and subtle. In LA they tell you to go visit Olivera Street in old LA. SF only has the Mission District (you need to find out about Fr. Serra's Missions), and Redwood City for instance. You will pick up Spanish/Mexican phrases by osmosis. Cities like Santa Barbara (1925 earthquake) architectural Review Board force building review for a Spanish motif. You will also get a little of the Catholic religion forced upon you, since that came with the Spanish/Mexicans. Anglo students in elementary schools get some Spanish language exposure. However, this is changing since there are now other ethnic groups having a hard enough time with English. Hola! See separate lower paragraph on the 2 Baja states.Annoying: non-locals and newbies who mispronounce Js without using an H: like La Jolla or Jesus or Juanipero or Jorge. Try these city names: Eureka, Ukiah, Yreka, Yucaipa.Earthquakes are a great topic to scare prospective residents off. That and fall fire season (you know what Phos-check and aluma-gel are), and winter flash foods and mud slides. And spring hay fever season.What's unique about the State of California's geography is like Chile: a long narrow skinny state (not as extreme as Chile). We span 10 degrees of latitude as opposed to original states further East which chose -East-West expansion. It's also where the 10 degrees at a transition belt in a temperate area: the South part of the State is desert, and the North is forest. This is why we have water problems. CA is comparatively narrow in a N-S sense.Our state requires extensive water movement for a population to live in its pseudo-Mediterrean climate (I've been to Cadiz and Tarifa, Andaluccia, Spain as well as Gibraltar: you almost can't tell the difference in veg.). The critical clever idea was to tap the annual snow pack for water. This is because it requires the use of fewer smaller dams. The phase change of 80 Cal/cc (almost 2 orders of magnitude) from ice to water is what makes our water system useful. This is accomplished by 2 (3) major N-S mountain ranges: the coastal ranges and the Sierra Nevada/Cascade ranges. The total relief in CA from sea-level to almost 14.5K ft. squeezes water out of the air and forms snow. Snow is far more important than water because of that 80 Cal. difference. California is a 3-D major state.The Central Valley (Sacramento River Valley in the N, and San Joaquin River Valley in the S), and the lesser Salinas and Imperial Valleys are major ag centers. These are slowly being converted into urban areas. These Valleys as well as San Diego and Orange Counties for the major part of the conservative political base in California. You will even find the hints of both the California Nationalist Socialist (Nazi) Party (the documentary California Reich), KKK, and JBS (John Birch Society with "Get us out of the UN" signs).The State Government is composed of 58 counties in a State Senate and an Assembly. By now, I may have visited all of them (not intentionally). This is mostly about agriculture (land). They have very little concept about technology (GPS and chemicals are used extensively in agriculture but before that it was map, compass and surveying equipment). I've had discussions (representing the Feds.) in Sacramento, and they were good ones (I was challenged to visit 4 counties to see Internet connectivity: 2 good ones, and 2 poor ones (this was a geographic knowledge test (Siskiyou and Shasta (I had no problems), and then Inyo and Plumas (I've friends in the first and may retire fully there), and at the time I was stumped briefly (have been to Quincy a number of times now (including small plane flying)))))). A book about all county high points exists.I should note that if you want a survey of the whole State, visit the Cal Expo in Sacramento from the end of August to the beginning of Sept. This is the State Fair. Some city folk will poo-poo Fairs, but this is a survey of activity, not all agricultural in every CA county. I took a 2nd place for technical drawing (I drew an incomplete drawing for a Sikorsky S-64 Sky crane) while in Jr. High School and I started getting college offers while still in 9th grade. This is the kind of thing which distinguishes you in college and life.A neighbor and I have landed at over 100 public airports in CA (mostly Northern Calif. including OR, WA, NV, AZ, and UT, over 260) in a small plane.The urban Democrats learned the lessons of their defeat in the 2004 Presidential elections (too much time in the cities), and went into Nevada, AZ, and OR (the first two were difference) in 2008. Various Republicans are irked. Interior counties are more red but not like the East coast, ditto Orange and San Diego counties.So I know where Republicans live; in the Central Valley from Redding to Bakerfield (Demo studying rural health care economics). My HS mentor moved to Visalia. Friends grew up in Fresno. The other major areas at Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino Counties and San Diego as well as the North Coast and Central Coast. Dad rose to the level of Dept. official in the American Legion.The motion picture industry (it's not called Show BUSINESS for nothing) is a major force in So. Cal. So much media is recorded here, that when the video is placed, residents can identify when and when something was recorded/filmed. The house I grew up in (just a middle class house) was used in a film. Because of the aforementioned latitude location, you can just about find any natural environment for filming, and they have location scouts for this. Yeah, you can tour studios, get jobs, grow up into the industry. Friends from high school and college work in the industry: I see their names roll by on credits occasionally. I briefly considered, when younger, working for WED Enterprises (Walt E. Disney) in Burbank as an Imagineer. Friends from my ACM/SIGGRAPH chapter (in the Bay Area) did (Jim has since died from Covid-19).Lucas made effective use of his time in Modesto and Petaluma.Because of WWII, a lot of aerospace industry is in So. Cal. and a little in Northern California. This has shrunk substantially, as has the oil industry (on and off shore). There is a gun culture; it's the Democrats who own cannons (really; I’ve attended cannon shoots). Some places do Renaissance Faire and Civil War reenactments. But the car culture reigns big (hot rods, motorcycles, etc.). The Conservatives count gays and Lesbians among them. What you will occasionally see are the Libertarians (people citing Ayn Rand are common (Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead)) around the coastlines and the Green Party in the far NW.Proposals to splint the state go from 2 (5 degree dividing line in CA 145 thru Madera near the geographic center of the state), three, and most recently 6 States. If you travel to the North you hear about how they almost combined with Southern OR (don't forget that part, they have their problem with OR government) to form the State of Jefferson (prospective State insignia of 2 Xs for Double Cross).Education is a big deal. It's not as snooty as the Eastern Ivy League. If you examine the very first ARPAnet map, 3 of the first four universities were in California. The 4th (Utah) was still in the West. They were thinking about the future of technology back then. They didn't have excess baggage. Unfortunately the education system is stressed. The first think tanks were here (e.g., RAND Corporation).Smokers in CA are basically very accommodating of non-smokers. It was tough dating one, but she was the finest woman I ever dated (her dad was a Caltech physics prof who recently passed away, she was not your average smoker).When you went to elementary school, you learned we are the Golden State for the brief Au rush. Other important California topics were citrus (can you name the types?), what was the California fishing, in particular tuna, industry (they were the cause of Chile and Peru to adopt 200 mile limits from the earlier 12 mile and 3 mile). The cultures which moved here, got clobbered here, would all be studied.The weather helps an outdoor health craze to this day (not that every one partakes). Public transit is poor and attempting to catch up. Distances are long and people feel forced to buy cars (Teslas are coming on but also other electrics). The Eastern US talks about the Atlantic and Ellis Island and Columbus (Italian, much less Leif Erickson). California has the Pacific and Angel Island. Some of our parents got rounded up and interned, this was overruled, and some people still to this day complain about that action (the over turning).Slavery didn't have a big hold during the Civil War. CA was part of the "North". This is lost on many on the East Coast, South. The Mason-Dixon Line took a turn South at Texas. The natives enslaved by the Missions weren’t counted.You can be in a snow storm (winter is optional; we go have quite a number of real glaciers) one moment and in a desert dust storm in a couple hours. The best place to experience this is the Palm Springs aerial tramway during a serious winter storm, but not so bad as to shut the tram down. Doesn't require car chains.Surfing is another story. Said enough.And Woody Allen noted the cultural advantage is the ability to make a right turn at a red light (not all, make certain to read all traffic signs). Many in CA like it that simple.You do need to be mindful on freeways and highways of road rage. This includes your pets.You have remaining tall Redwoods of various species (most were cut down). You have some of the oldest Bristlecone pines. Agriculture is still a big industry which many city dwellers tend to discount. Prisons are the new industry in part due to the three-strikes law. They are most visible at night in areas away from population centers. Some counties have rejected prison jobs.Many foreign countries have consulates in California. The Russians have major signal collection facilities from the Soviet era. We have the People's Republics of Berkeley, Oakland, and Santa Cruz.Tourists are always wondering what to see. We have more ghettos than people realize; some have corporate HQs like Nissan, Toyota, and Honda. Californians tend to drive more Priuses, than Honda Insights: a friend from Houston once commented.I know 3 German markets, a Scandinavian market, 3 Japanese markets, numerous Chinese, Mexican, Indian/Pakistani/Afghan markets. Mexican food isn't just tacos and burritos: it's mariscos, too. Abalone is a complex eating issue now (caught by self North of SF Bay or farm raised (hope this works)).Some of us residents have to put up with the meat and potatoes crowd making fun of our eating rice and raw fish. And tofu. The lactose intolerant have to put up with the assumptions of the lactose tolerant.Upper and middle class people pay to play harvesting wine grapes. Meanwhile, Mexicans are doing it in the Central Valley as professionals. Friends and I are caught in the middle doing it as a neighborly thing. I'm accused to taking high value PhDs and turning them into slave labor (they are just glad to get away for the day). Does this increase the value of the grapes (and then the wine) if people knew who picked them?The status car is a Tesla (one friend at google owns 2: one West coast, one at their East coast home) or various other electrics like RAV4s or EV-1s when they were out. Volts are coming along. Gas powered cars for an older generation or live in the Central Valley (Camaros, Chargers, Mustangs and many other foreign gas powered cars). I just had my car broken into (3x in my 2 vehicles now).....Many of us bike. And someone tried to steal my bike (couple of different times, it's a cheap bike, now stolen, got a donated bike from a friend). I live in a neighborhood of multi-colored bicycles most of which are single gear. We also have weird self driving cars, street view cars, etc. And they aren't all from google. They include bing (.com) and other panoramic mapping cameras, and other self driving cars from Michigan and the major automakers.Growing up as a kid, many white kids thought that the Asian kids knew Tae Kwondo, or Judo, or Karate. So I picked it up. (Actually, my parents said we descended from archers, so I've tried archery (actually recently got a gift bow (a compound model not a simple recurve bow) for a friend's son who joined the Scouts). I have to wrestle with the lethal force problem (to stay current), and may be purchasing a shot gun for trips to Alaska. I've expended $200 in 2 seconds (ammo for an M-134). Jumped out of perfectly good planes. Did the sail plane thing with my high school chemistry teacher. In turn, I taught him the basics of night sky astronomy.Many of the new rich don't feel the need to wear suits. Zuck legitimized the hoodie. The old rich (I know a few: I had Thanksgiving dinner at the SF Yacht Club: you will know if you know the rules of dress there) are disgusted by this. Women are caught in the middle of this but pull to the old, conservative. Ditto other non-whites.I see less ROTC, and church going, compared to other parts of the country.Let's see: I finished hiking the Muir Trail at the end of the 1980s. Climbed the 14Kers a number of times by various routes by that time, too before heading out of state for other objectives. We have the university which developed the atomic bomb (in another state no less, but they brought it back here later).I, at least, had a nice time in all my schools (public). Had fantastic educational experiences. Got to know a few Nobel laureate families. Met a few veterans in their time. Traveled the roads extensively (from Alturas (I edited a Knuth paper mentioning it) and Likely in the NE (Cedarville is also very nice) to Algondones near Yuma, National City to Crescent City. Our state has islands and a lot of interesting ocean. Nuclear reactors and accelerators, National labs and space and aero facilities. All Mach 3 planes were developed here.We have Death Valley. We have to share Lake Tahoe and the Colorado River with neighboring states. We have a 3rd world country to our South (rapidly changing toward 1st world). We have a fence which is porous with tunnels with a cross section for trucks which are found underneath it.We have a lot of privately owned wide open space. We have a few playas, but Nevada has more easily accessible day lake beds (CA's are used for bombing ranges, etc.; well El Mirage is open (flew in a sail plane (an S-33-2 with my HS chem teacher here)).One stands in a crowd. And some annoying person notes that everyone here is an immigrant to California, not even acknowledging that some of us grew up here.California is the home of both Sunset magazine and Scotts Lawn care products (Scotts Valley). If you are a keeping up with the Jones type, this is our version of Martha Stewart.If you are a real geek or nerd, you will know how to pronounce "halted .com". If you are a software person, your pronunciation can be forgiven. You know what district of Tokyo to visit.The most irksome thing about new California drivers is that they fail to pay attention to the road or freeway they are driving. When they miss a turn or ramp, they will attempt to cut across 2 or more lanes of traffic to make the ramp or turn, instead of realizing they blew it, get off at the next ramp and backtrack. You try to be too smart/clever and be overly quick to make up for your failure of attention. This is how you might cause a traffic accident here.Cars I have owned. This is a common computer security verification question. Largely economy cars. I've owned a car which got over 50 MPG, 4 decades ago (got over 300K miles on it). I've owned 2 SUVs (1 got over 400K miles on it), and I use 4WD low with some frequency (like yesterday in Silicon Valley). 2 of my new vehicles I didn't even bother to buy an AM/FM radio (this should give you an idea how dull I am). I care almost nothing about their color except urban camo (see my answer about Do men care about the color of their computing devices?), and thermal issues.I have met some amazing people growing up in California. Part of that was via correspondence (paper letters: introduced me to a now long time friend named Marvin Minsky, had nothing to do with computers). Then in college, I had the ARPAnet (no email at the time) and with email I was able to email people in computing like Marvin. Work allowed me to meet Nobel laureates. And Usenet was a great way to expand Internet horizons. While I didn't grow up in Silicon Valley and didn't get into microprocessors until later, I had contact. And most of these guys I run into grocery shopping. Or sometimes we carpool together (John McCarthy of Stanford was one such friend). You'd get bored with this if you didn't understand the place.California also refers to 2 States in the United States of Mexico: Baja California and Baja California Sur. Not nearly as populated, and most news concentrates on immigration (legal and illegal), but some very nice small towns like Loretto, Tecate (yes that's where they make the beer), the wine growing region. La Paz, Guerrero Negro, Todos Santos. Yes, there is crime, but there's also snowy 10K ft. peaks (possible to X-C ski). The largest Chinese population in Mexico is in Mexicali (they speak Spanish; do you expect them to speak English along with Chinese?). The Baja California States are not quite treated like the mainland Mexican states.Silicon Valley: if you have or hear of a problem (tech), you hear or get the weirdest reactions. An early noted OCR software, had an early version problem. So I called Tech Support (which just happened to be in Los Gatos). And the person on the phone said that Yes, that was an early bug and we fixed that and can mail you the update. And I gave my work address. "Do you know Frank ...?" Yes he's one of our Branch Chiefs. "He's my dad. I'll see him at dinner this evening and give him the disk then." And I got it in an interoffice mail envelope (this was back in the 1990s).East coast positives: Seasons: summer time fireflies are quite amazing. East coasters cite fall colors (New England). I've now visited Maine. California has nothing like that, but in certain higher elevations in the various mountain ranges where snow falls, you can get select fall color, like places where there are Aspens and cottonwoods. You just have to work on it. The duration and areal extent are shorter and smaller than the East coast. We have many more evergreens and scrub oaks. We are a little like coastal Spain. Better beaches (gradual slope).If you don't "Like" California, you can leave. This is why Oregon came up with the word Californication. We now have to deal with Oregon tourism ads (“It’s the economy, stupid”).For college summer jobs, I worked and climbed in Yosemite Valley. Ask me my zip code. So I have answers to tourist questions there. Friends still live there, but it’s best for me to visit them in winter or at least the off tourist season. Following that I drew masks for thin film circuits for 2 summers, so I’ve also have VLSI development.My body shop mechanic, Hispanic, once said, “You have to know 5 languages to do business in this place (Redwood City).”The furtherest South Russian colony/settlement was Fort Ross, CA, just North of SF.CA isn’t for everybody, but some of us were born here. And 1 friend’s relatives were here before statehood and were among the Donner Party rescuers.The Chinese-Americans can spot the Chinese spies (intelligence operatives trying to recruit Chinese-Americans) in Chinese restaurants. You can even read about them here on Quora (company).Quora (company) is here. It’s why you are reading this. It’s also the home of Facebook (See the movie Social Network? ever wonder why?), google, Yahoo!, even Microsoft, IBM, Wal-Mart know to have labs and offices here. The bio-tech Silicon Valley is South San Francisco where Genentech and it’s associated companies. Amgen has an office on the other side of the Bay.If you have a life variable you want addressed, let me know.Reference links:What was Mountain View, CA like before Google? Did Google have a huge impact on the development of the surrounding area, or was it just another piece of the growing puzzle?What facts about the United States do foreigners not believe until they come to America?