Jeff Hester

The people are warm and extremely friendly. Being there is a special event in itself, and that’s not bad.

I live in Murrieta, California; a growing suburb about an hour from Los Angeles, San Diego and Orange County (The OC). It’s not well known, even here in southern California. In fact, when I tell my co-workers in Orange County that I live in Murrieta, the next question they ask is “where is Murrieta?”

I moved here from Orange County back in 1989. Back then, the population was about 16,000. There wasn’t a single traffic light. A visit to the nearest grocery store involved a trip five miles down the freeway. It was an old, mostly rural community of horse ranches dotted with signs of change—sparkling new tracts of homes built to attract families from San Diego and Orange County.

My kids were young. My oldest began kindergarten here in Murrieta, and now she’s 22 and studying at UC Santa Barbara. Needless to say, my family has changed a lot in the past 16 years, and Murrieta has changed with it.

These days, the population has mushroomed to nearly 80,000. There is still new construction everywhere you turn. It seems like every available lot is being developed. There are still some rural areas, but they are quickly being surrounded by new homes and stores. And we finally have excellent broadband access - fiber optic from Verizon FIOS - with 15 Mbps downstream speed.

On the downside, the increase in population has clogged the streets. I trip across town that used to take 10 minutes, now can take 30 minutes or more.

A large percentage of the people who live here commute to work in LA, San Diego or O.C. (as do I). The long commute means that I don’t see my neighbors much during the week. That’s one of the reasons the city lobbied Verizon to bring fiber optic here for testing (we were one of the early cities to implement it). City officials hope that the fast broadband will attract businesses and people who can telecommute (as I do, a couple days each week).

Murrieta is on the edge of southern California’s wine country . It’s fun to go wine tasting, or to the annual Temecula Valley Wine and Balloon Festival . Most mornings you can look toward the south and count a number of hot-air balloons floating in the skies.

The climate here is pretty hard to beat—a very mild climate. It gets a little hot in the summer, but most of the year it’s very comfortable. Even in the middle of winter, you won’t need a jacket during mid-day (but maybe in the early morning and after the sun goes down). Once every ten years we get a light dusting of snow and it makes the front page news.

More about Murrieta:

• Murrieta via satellite
• City of Murrieta official website
• Murrieta weather
• My Home and my 3-Mile Running Loop
• GoMurrieta.com – a slow-moving personal project of mine, about Murrieta

Just got back from six days in Paris, and I loved it! The weather was beautiful, the people were great and the city was fabulous. It’s one of those places that I’ll gladly return to someday.

If you’re interested, you can check out the photos from the last three days of my trip on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffhester/sets/870370/

Unfortunately, I lost my camera on day three while visiting Versailles. If anyone finds a Fujifilm Finepix A210 digital camera with pictures of me and my wife in Paris… Send me the memory card and you can keep the camera (I’ve upgraded).

and had a great time. Those Maryland folk sure do love their crab cakes… and now I do, too! Coming from California, it was a treat to see so much lush greenery AND waterfront that hasn’t been 100% developed.

The town is old, quaint and small, and easy to walk around (if it’s not too humid).

Cool little town. Very artsy, but not pretentious. I’d love to come back for the Shakespeare festival.

On a side note, I learned how to make the best guacamole at a little mexican restaurant here—and why NOT to add lemon juice.

Vegas always gives me the feeling of a cheap facade, even at the newer high-end casinos. To me, it reeks of desire, but without substance. It’s a curiosity. It’s fun. It’s interesting. It’s even worth visiting. But it’s much dirtier and seedier than you might expect after watching Ocean’s Eleven.

Denver is a decent city with a really great (and HUGE) bookstore (the name escapes me) and easy access to the Rocky Mountains.

D.C. has some kick-ass museums, and if you’re a US Citizen, your tax dollars are paying for them, so why not get your money’s worth and pay a visit?

One of the highlights of my D.C. visits was seeing Dizzy Gillespie perform in a small, back alley jazz club in Georgetown. Sweet.

Hotlanta is a cool city. You can have fun here. Good subway system, too.

I guess when you’re expectations are low, it’s easy to be pleasantly surprised. St. Louis is that surpise. The downtown area is sparkling, and the historic section near the river has a cool jazz vibe at night.