I don't think that was their point, but still. The cross section of Richmond Suburbanites who would frequent a country western bar and confederate sympathizers is... not an inconsequential one. I graduated from Lee-Davis and was raised in Mechanicsville my whole life, and basically everyone I personally know in the area that's into the whole "boots, hats n' trucks" thing is still at least a little bitter about the statues and the schools. It's not everyone, but it's enough for a broad generalization.

Maybe that doesn't travel as well into some of the other suburban areas, but that's been my experience at least.

edit: I should also point out I don't have anything against country, it just seems to go hand in hand with conservatism around here. I lived in TN for a few years and Nashville was kind of a revelation, in that I could enjoy country music without feeling smothered by the whole weird redneck vibe it gets smothered in around here.

Legitimate question: Is Bubba's not a white supremacist bar? All I've ever heard about the place is that it was either a Klan hangout or literally where the Klan held their meetings, and that's going back decades. I've never set foot in the place specifically for that reason.

Much as I support the ACAB sentiment, the “leave without pay” thing is almost certainly due to bureaucratic requirements. Like, when I was in the military you could drop a video tape of you doing cocaine off a naked toddlers ass on your commanding officers desk… you’d still “have a job” at the end of the day. You’d be in jail, but actually processing you out would require all the paperwork to go through all the proper channels and be rubber stamped by all the right muckity-mucks, and it would often take a while. I can only imagine it’s similar with the police to a degree. Leave without pay is more than likely just saying “we need the conviction on paper before we fully shit-can you.”

I respect your courage in saying such an incorrect thing with such conviction.

I always tell people RVA is a city where you can do anything within 3 hours. Not much is what you’d call “world class” but you can do basically anything.

Quick round up: surfing, kayaking or kiteboarding towards VA beach. Jet skiing, wakeboarding, tubing etc on many of the lakes and rivers. Cycling in the Blue Ridge, Virginia Creeper Trail or Capital Trail. Skydiving out of West Point. Mountain biking trails in the city or further out towards the mountains. Mild white water on the James, world class white water in WV on the New or Gauley River. Off-roading on the Hatfield and McCoy trails. Indoor Rock Climbing at Triangle or Peak. Outdoor Climbing at Belle Isle or Manchester Bridge in the city, dozens of spots in the mountains, or multi-pitch guided climbing at Seneca Rocks out in WV. Snowboarding or skiing at Wintergreen or Massanutten. Caving/Spelunking throughout the Blue Ridge (commercial tourist caves or undeveloped caves to explore.) Coasters at Busch Gardens or Kings Dominion. The list of stuff around the area is… extensive.

Doesn’t that thing require you to get literally thousands of dollars in donations to participate?

The season pass and food plan is definitely a killer deal if you like coasters or plan to attend holiday events. It ends up being a couple hundred bucks per individual, but when you factor in you literally have zero expenses aside from gas for the rest of the year it can quickly become super cheap entertainment overall.

Thank god for this thread. We moved over the summer, our new house is 2600 and has two old heat pumps, one for each story. I got a $350 bill and was terrified that was our new normal because of the age of the house or condition of the heat pumps. At least if it’s hitting that hard elsewhere too I know it WAS an outlier and I’m not gonna lose my ass on heating bills.

Recovery being vague is kind of the thing. Richmond is always viewed in a lens as “recovering” from something. Civil war, reconstruction, world wars, “economic troubles” of various varieties, our “troubled past.”

On the one hand, it’s good because we always seem to get a little bit of a pass. On the other, it’s really fucking condescending. “Aw, look at this little city, it’s so cute how they have these adorable cafes and microbreweries even though just yesterday they were a bunch of murder capital racist drug corridor confederates!” These articles read with the same good natured superiority as when you compliment a little kid for being dad’s big helper working on the deck.

Like it or not, yeah. Every smaller city gets pigeonholed with some stereotype, we got “burned down in the civil war.” Every time I see a Richmond article it’s always the same thing. I’m not saying there’s not an element of truth, but you’d think after 15 years of the same thing, people wouldn’t be playing the rebuilding/wrestling-with-the-past bullet points in every single article.

I think the reason they're doing reasonably well is because they've struck a good balance on knowing who Mall-Generation people were, why they went, and how those tastes have changed. You can't run a mall off of Sears, S'Barros, Chick-Fil-A, Hot Topic and FYE. Middle and High Schoolers socialize digitally instead of needing a place to meetup and waste time, Gen X and Millenials always thought JC Pennies was lame, and Boomers are settled and not buying stuff by the truckload to fill a house and clothe the kids.

Gen X and elder-Millenial crowds that remember wandering malls still kind of want that type of space though. Shortpump gave them a more "adult" mall, where the stores are higher end lifestyle companies, the food options are a big step up from food courts, and the decor doesn't look like a saved by the bell episode. It managed to keep the core "come for X, wander for a couple hours" purpose of the old malls while providing the things that still interest the people who grew up haunting malls.

It's been way longer than that they've basically been on life support. I moved back to VA in 2013 and went up there on Black Friday to snag some tools from Sears, and that whole side of the road was vacant aside from like 20 cars at Sears. Previously, I think the last time I went was to pick up some Bridal Party gifts for a wedding in like 2010, and a damn good chunk of the stores were either empty or in that generic-rebrand stage where the old chick-fil-a had moved out, but the stall still served chicken sandwiches with a sign that said "Chicken-Burger" in the same font.

I'm an OEF veteran, try again if you expect that first responder guilt trip to take. And again, bigger problems existing doesn't make smaller problems not exist.

Which is why First Responders would never have been put on WFH in the first place, and therefore wouldn't be those "spoilt brats" you're talking about that are complaining about it going away. You can dodge around and try to selectively identify "Most US Citizens" in your first statement down to one entitled worker in LA with no obligations who once tweeted about being mad she had to put pants on to go back into the office, but your original statement stands on it's own and you're not going to carve demographics off until you're back to being right about it.

And I was literally calling out that stance as bullshit. I don't work from home, never have. It's impossible in my industry. My wife does however, since Covid. You're acting like telework is just "haha I can wear my sweatpants to work now." That aint it. Telework has had, in her industry, zero effect on the companies bottom line. None. ie: There's zero reason to undo it. What it has done, is given my wife 2 hours a day, 10 hours a week, 40 hours a month, 500 hours a year of her life back that she would have spent commuting. That's 20 days, if you want to do the math. 20 straight days in the car, for no fucking reason. It let us pull our kids out of daycare, and saved us around $1000/mo in childcare expenses, because our son can come straight home after school, and our daughter can stay at home all day with her mom instead of being pawned off on strangers. It means one of us doesn't have to take the day off if a kid is sick, because my wife is already home. It means I can work overtime if needed, because I don't have to cut and run exactly at 5 o'clock to get to the daycare on time. We were literally able to buy a house because of the extra income available after they confirmed WFH isn't going anywhere.

So quit your reductive bullshit. WFH isn't just a casual benefit, it's been the single biggest monetary and quality of life change our household has ever gotten, and it cost her company the grand total of... being able to lease a smaller office space? So yeah, I'd be pretty irate if they irrationally decided to yank everyone back in the office. It's literally improved every facet of our lives.

People can have valid complaints about employment at a variety of levels without declaring some of them “spoilt brats.” One person getting their leg broken doesn’t negate another person getting punched in the kidney, or a third person getting slapped in the face. Workers are mistreated and abused in a variety of ways in a variety of severities, and calling out employers for pointless mistreatment is how terrible jobs turn to shitty jobs and shitty jobs turn to ok jobs. You don’t just stop trying to improve things when you stop being literal slave labor.