A DC Blog Primer on Orange County

By DC Cueva

@DC408dxtr

As autumn rolls on and some of my very good twitter friends have now flown out of the country & out of the social media world for the next month or so, my attention in the MTV world turns to two sets of great people who I've become great social media friends with as of late. In fact, most of them - all but three in total - have given me a follow, much in the same manner that some in the Real World & Challenge community have given me ever since I joined twitter last year.

   First, there's the beautiful ladies of Big Tips Texas who currently occupy the night usually accompanied by RW/Challenges: Wednesday. And Typhani, Kristin, Morgan, Amber, Jillian, Claire, Mercedez, Sabrina, Macy and Mimi will all keep me company on hump day until Real World Back to San Francisco takes over in the new year. And tomorrow night on that Thursday 10pm slot recently occupied by Jersey Shore and once owned by the medical drama E.R., the nurses of Scrubbing In will take center stage. And the great interaction among cast members of both shows, their fans and, most especially, between both casts, have caught my attention so much that they've caught on to my idea that they're part of "Team MTV."

   The ladder will see its premiere this Thursday (or "NurseDay" as they're calling it) with buzz being generated by press on both sides of the ledger. And it was this fan who's done his part to help build buzz for the show, and although I don't like starting any drama, I inadvertently added some extra fuel to the fire too - albeit in a good way. When I posted a screen-cap of my iPad lock screen changing over to a newly-posted press pic of the Scrubbing In cast and tagging all of the cast members/nurses - Tyrice, Chris, Chelsey, Michelle, Crystal, Nikki, Heather, Adrian & Fernando, it caught their eye almost immediately on Instagram & they were able to help spread the word as well.

The place that will serve as the backdrop for Scrubbing In is a familiar one to MTV viewers: Orange County, California. Nine years ago, this was host to Laguna Beach, that groundbreaking high school melodrama that made LC and Kristin household names. This time around, although we'll be seeing the cast have plenty of fun, it's not necessarily your typical summer vacation as these people are also registered nurses and are very skilled in what they do: saving lives, while also enjoying themselves after work.

   Some facts on Orange County: it's the 3rd largest populous county in the nation's largest state: over 3 million people live in the O.C., placing it behind only Los Angeles and San Diego Counties. As it is the smallest county in area in SoCal, it is also the region's most-densely populated county, and placing second only to San Francisco County in California amongst all counties. It's the 6th largest populous county in the U.S., also joining Cook County, IL (including Chicago), Harris County, TX (including Houston), and Maricopa County, AZ (including Phoenix), and placing it ahead of counties that include the Bronx & Queens in New York City, Dallas and Miami. And unlike other major population centers, there is no defined urban center in the county, as there are more suburban areas than usual, aside from county seat Santa Ana, tourism hub Anaheim, Irvine - anchor city of commerce, Huntington Beach and Fullerton; with the first three having populations over 200,000, Anaheim being the largest at over 330K followed by Santa Ana at 326K.

   Before Detroit went broke earlier this year, Orange County was the largest U.S. county & municipal area to declare for bankruptcy - that happened nearly 20 years ago, but it has since recovered to become one of the most-affluent counties in the country. It forms part of the Tech Coast where a number of information technologies call the Southland home, much similar to the Silicon Valley. A number of Fortune 500 & Fortune 1000 companies call the O.C. home (largest being computer hardware company Ingram Micro), while Irvine also lays claim to a number of start-ups and other key corporate headquarters/hub offices. And while it shares most of the same attributes of whites being majority & Hispanics being the largest minority, the thing that differates the OC from LA in its racial makeup is that the largest concentration of Vietnamese people living abroad resides in the county - nearly 190,000, part of nearly 370,000 who've deflected from the country to the LA market.

Of course, thanks in no small part to the fine Mediterranean climate & sunny skies that SoCal enjoys year round and brings travelers in from all over the world, the O.C. is well-known to most of us for its tourism, which represents a huge chunk of their economy. And you've no doubt heard about that great theme park Disneyland: two theme parks, three hotels and the entertainment district Downtown Disney, and I've been there three times when I was a kid. It's also home to Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park and many beaches along its 40+ miles worth of coastline. Across the street from "the happiest place on earth" is the largest convention center on the West Coast, the Anaheim Convention Center. And the largest mall on the West Coast calls Orange County home - South Coast Plaza.

   In the sports front, Anaheim is home to the Angels, who broke my heart when they beat the Giants in the '02 World Series, and later divided OC fans when they changed their name to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim to tap more into the market of the larger neighbor city to the north. The Ducks became the first West Coast NHL franchise to lift the Stanley Cup in 2007, years after it came into the league and bearing the original nickname of the Disney film The Mighty Ducks. And Huntington Beach, "Surf City USA", is at the heart of SoCal's surf culture as home to the U.S. Open of Surfing & other surfing competitions, along with AVP volleyball, skateboarding and being home to USA Water Polo.

   For pop culture fanatics, most of us know Orange County has served as host to a number of movies & TV shows. As mentioned above, there's Laguna Beach, plus there's The O.C., which helped to increase tourism even more to the places seen on those shows, as well as The Real Housewives of Orange County and Arrested Development. In movies, the films Orange County, Better Luck Tomorrow and Ocean's Eleven, among others, were filmed there. All that aside, a recent local TV shakeup saw OC-based public TV station KOCE become the LA market's primary PBS member station when cost-cutting measures saw longtime member KCET disaffiliate from the pub-caster.

   And some other factoids: what article on this SoCal locale wouldn't be complete without mentioning automobiles? Three interstate and 13 state highways form the OC's highway system. Several colleges and universities call the OC home, including the University of California-Irvine, Cal State Fullerton and the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising. And who is the county's most well-known resident? Richard Nixon, who was born in Yorba Linda, became the 37th President of the United States and settled in San Clemente after his resignation. A presidential library in his hometown bears his name, just like the area's international airport, which is named for Newport Beach native John Wayne. Others who are natives or residents of the OC area include No Doubt & front lady Gwen Stefani, Will Ferrell, Kevin Costnwr, Tiger Wooda, Kobe Bryant, Linkin Park's Chester Bennington and MMA fighter Tito Ortiz.

Lastly, I forgot to mention in my BTT/SI post about the reason why I'm looking forward to watching Scrubbing In, and I actually told one of the new people, Chelsey, about this too. While I might not be interested in working in the healthcare profession - at least for now, in a way I can relate to the cast. I having great respect for the job they do, especially working in a tough, demanding and pressure-filled environment as working in hospitals, where lives are often on the line. My mom works for a company that provides renal testing facilities to kidneys. My uncle who lives in the New York area works in a hospital in Queens. And one of my high school friends, who also got to meet Steve Nash in my IG repost, also works in a hospital, also based in Southern California. Those reasons, along with having some of the same attributes I'm accustomed to on The Real World & other reality shows (laid-back atmosphere, some partying and drama) and the fact that this actually features those who have career aspirations (reminiscent of old-school RW), will all give reason to look forward to watching tomorrow night.

So, there's DC Blog's primer of Orange County. And a decade has past since I last went not only to the OC, but to Southern California, having last went in 2002 for my sister's college graduation. And because I'm so fascinated with SoCal, I feel like I'm well overdue for a trip. And especially since I have a couple kids, maybe soon we'll be taking them to Disneyland. So to sis & bro, can we make it happen?

   Stay tuned here to DCB as we cover sports, entertainment and some other things too. If you're a Real World/Challenge fan, check out my full coverage of Rivals II, with a season wrap up coming up soon, followed by RW Back to San Francisco. For now, thanks for reading and until then, have fun. And enjoy Scrubbing In. And to the nurses, welcome to Team MTV and good luck.

- DC

Sources

- Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_County,_California.