Best CA hospitals and places to live

smile123 · Apr 22, 2006

You guys keep referring to orange county as yuppie and I thikn someone referred to LA as yuppie too. Can you please elaborate on what yuppie is because I don't get it... lol

Yuppie:

n. Informal

A young city or suburban resident with a well-paid professional job and an affluent lifestyle.

Here's a link about yuppies:

http://www.billburg.com/articles/yuppies_reply02.html

Defined in the strictest literal sense, the term refers to the "Young Urban Professional," which forms the acronym that serves as the root of the word (Y.U.P.). Such a demographic casts a rather wide net. Based on the definition, you're considered a yuppie if you're under 35, reside in a city, and earn a salary that doesn't force you to live paycheck-to-paycheck.

Or try this link to understand where the term "yuppie" came from:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=yuppie

Hope that helps.

Smile123

Karotte · Apr 23, 2006

Just wanted to mention that I really like living in Long Beach. I live 2 blocks from the beach, close to downtown and the OC border and I think it's really fun. Plus, rent is reasonable - I pay less than $1,000 for a one bedroom and I do not live in a bad area. People are laid back, the weather is great, and I like taking long walk on the ocean every day. :) Someone mentioned that there's a VA hospital here as well..

I'll be moving to SF next month, which is even more exciting, but I definitely liked Long Beach a lot.

tinyscrafts · Apr 24, 2006

I'll ditto long beach, with exceptions of north long beach, downtown and parts of far west long beach. I live in lakewood. pm me if you want with some city names you come across

chuchie, ADN, BSN, MSN, LPN, APRN, NP · Apr 30, 2006

I live in Corona and I think it is nice and the right area for me. It is sad how some people from the OC and elsewhere label you for living in the 951 and 909. The truth is, you can be in some really nice neighborhoods around here and even more farther inland but there can be some pretty nasty ones as well. I think parts of Riverside can get pretty ghetto but again people, you can be driving in a nice area and then be in a nasty area not too far away. Rancho Cucamonga is great and so is Chino Hills. By the way, there are ghetto parts of OC when you go inland. To me, I can live in a nice area in Corona or live in a ghetto area of the OC for the same price. On the downside, it does get a lot hotter here in the summer. On a trip to the beach in July it was over 100 degrees at my place, but when we got to Newport it was only 75. The traffic is worse going towards LA and OC where many of the people out here work, I HATE THE 91!!!!:uhoh21: If you have your heart set on living by the beach, I agree with what the other posters have said about Huntington Beach. It is the cheapest place to be for living close to the coast. If you are young and just plan on being here for a while, but not to buy a house or anything like I am, get a copy of the pennysaver and you can get yourself in touch with roomates and places to rent. Basically what it boils down to is living inland = cheaper housing, food, insurance, etc but worse traffic and heat. Living closer to the beach = better weather, more nightlife, but a higher cost of living. Everyone has their own tastes and expectations and ones decision may not be the right one for the next person. Good luck to those who are planning their move, it is really different out here, but wonderful nonetheless

luv2shopp85 · Apr 30, 2006

Thanks for the definition smile123!!

I've never really looked into long beach because I thought it was out of my leaque and way too expensive. How far is Long Beach from Laguna Beach?

Is there a lot of young people there too? And how is the weather? I hate really gross humid weather and I also hate that misty, windy, and damp ocean air that you can get sometimes when you live on the beach. I know when I visited Laguna Beach it was nothing like that and the weather was beautiful so i really loved it there! And this was in Dec when I visited so I'm sure its gets better toward the summer months!

Karotte · Apr 30, 2006

Long Beach is about an hour north of Laguna Beach. There are young people (Cal State Long Beach), and I would not describe the weather as humid or damp. I've lived in NC, and compared to that, it never feels humid here.

happygrad06 · May 1, 2006

Hello all. New here. Graduating in June woo hoo. I'm from San Diego grew up in that area, moved away in 1995 and haven't been back. Let me just say that it's very very expensive in CA. rent and purchase. Everything else is the same,..high...utils ect. And it is why I left...the expense. Even as a nurse (and I've been researching salaries for beginning nurses there in CA they aren't any higher than anywhere else in the nation from what I can tell they start around 22 an hour on average)...even with that I could not afford to pay 3,000 a month to rent a lousy little 3 bed house. I can rent that for 800/month in Spokane. The difference? It's freezing butt in Spokane 8 months out of the year. I miss my warm weather to be SURE!!! The reason it's so expensive in CA is because 1/2 the nation wants to live in that temperate year round weather. And so it costs. It also produces serious traffic and crowds 24/7 so, that's another reason I left. And smog? Lots of it. I like clean air. But oh how I miss the weather!! So I've been thinking about moving back there for that weather and asking myself if I could deal with crowds and smog (not really...). But the bottom line is, I just can't afford to take my 2 kids and live there as a single mom. Nope. too expensive.

TheCommuter, BSN, RN · May 3, 2006

Thanks for the definition smile123!!
I've never really looked into long beach because I thought it was out of my leaque and way too expensive. How far is Long Beach from Laguna Beach?
Is there a lot of young people there too?

There are many young adults in Long Beach because it is a college town. California State University at Long Beach has about 28,000 students attending.

socal_student · May 3, 2006

Theres Baloba Hospital (Naval Medical Center San Diego) and theres Veterns Administration in La Jolla.. did clinicals there. through time, ive heard that better benefits outweigh the highest pay. personally, i dont know about that. but thats what a few nurses said from VA, i assumed that their pay wasnt top notch.

Sheri257 · May 3, 2006

Theres Baloba Hospital (Naval Medical Center San Diego) and theres Veterns Administration in La Jolla.. did clinicals there. through time, ive heard that better benefits outweigh the highest pay. personally, i dont know about that. but thats what a few nurses said from VA, i assumed that their pay wasnt top notch.

The other problem with VA hospitals is that they don't have to comply with California staffing ratio requirements. So you can end up with more patients, unless you're working in ICU.

:typing

BakingMom · May 3, 2006

If you're asking about the best hospitals in California, UCLA, UCSF, and Stanford made the top 10 rankings (as they do almost every year) in the U.S. News Best Hospitals 2006. I used to work at UCSF and depending on our ranking and unit scores, we would get a nice bonus every year! =) I'm from San Jose and living in the San Francisco Bay Area is just expensive period! The pay is really good, rates are even higher than so. cal., but you can't survive without roommates and a good-paying job. My parents had to sell our house in San Jose and move to Sacramento, which is more affordable, but cost of living here is also on the rise. We bought our new house (2-level, about 20,000 sq. ft., 4 bd 3 bath) for a little over $200,000 but this was 2 years ago. We sold our San Jose home (same size, but 1-story, 4 bd 2bath) for over $600k. The stupid thing though is that my parents commute to work every day, because the pay is higher and there are more jobs there, easier to find. I think it's ridiculous though! I wouldn't do it that way! There are new developments all over northern california that are cheaper than the bay area, but i prefer living in so cal to here because it's just a more gorgeous and fun place to live! More things to do, more to see! The only downfall I think is that their traffic could be worse than ours over here!

SE_BSN_RN, BSN · May 5, 2006

You've got to be kidding when you ask about 'reasonable places' to live in California. You'll be very fortunate to find a small house that costs under $600,000 or a 1 bedroom apartment that rents for under $1,500. I'm not familiar with northern California; however, I am a southern California native.
Los Robles Hospital (Thousand Oaks, California) pays experienced RNs extremely well, up to $45 hourly. The cost of living in Thousand Oaks is horrendous, but it's a nice and safe city. The average southern California hospital starts at about $30 per hour. I am from Oxnard, California. The weather is perfect all year long and the city has a coastline. The cost of living is very expensive there, too.
I lived in Bakersfield for 2 years (2003 to 2005) and enjoyed it there. It's a mid-sized city in central California with a cost of living that is very reasonable. You can find a nice home there for $250,000 or rent an apartment for $700 per month. The only downsides to living there are the extreme heat in the summer and the lack of recreation.
If you want to live in Los Angeles, I personally like the east San Fernando Valley section. It includes Burbank, Glendale, Studio City, North Hollywood, Valley Village, and a few other districts. There's also West Los Angeles, including Santa Monica, Hermosa Beach, Marina Del Rey, and other cities. There's a VA hospital in West Los Angeles with easy freeway access. Good luck!

Northern CA is the same. Hehehe you can't get a shack for under $600K. Kaiser starts at about $14/ hr and you can't live off that.