The heavy burden of my job

Ok, there's no way to make this not sound like gloating, so I won't bother to try very hard. I'm in Santa Barbara on a working trip to scope out new lab equipment and to make new friends in the world of virtual reality. It's going really well. I've fallen through floors, fought off grenade attacks, caught strange coloured balls with my nose, and driven sporty little cars across vast tracts of desert. In the real world, I've eaten some fantastic food, driven through the Sierra Madres looking for Bogart.

I've spent as much time as possible walking on the beach, but truthfully my daylight hours have been filled with workstuff, so less beach time than I'd hoped. I've noticed that there is a certain difference between beach behaviour here and on the other coast where I spent my last year. For one thing, about 30% of walkers here are simultaneously talking on cell phones. For another, the conversations are a bit different. A few snippets:

A young woman into a cell phone: "I just don't think you're trying very hard to be an active party in this relationship"

A fiftyish man to his male friend: "She's 27 years old. I can't believe he pulled this off. She's an ER nurse."

A preteen boy: "Howeeeyo. Howeeyo. Howeeyo. Howeeyo." (I'm not sure if this actually meant something or was an expression of exuberance of some kind).

There are other differences. A couple of acres of oceanfront land here sells for about 10-15 million dollars. It can be done for six figures on the other coast. On the other hand, if you factor in hours of sunshine, things would probably come out at par.