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<3 manuals; my great great grandfather beleived that everyone should learn to drive first on the tractor (john deer for the record) before learning on the road, and I would recommend it to anyone learning to drive a manual, tractors make it very easy to distinguish the relationship between gear/power/speed.
I just bought a new car w/a manual transmission (6 speed no less!) after driving an automatic for a year- it felt like a missing piece of my brain had been reconnected. There isn't anything inherently wrong with an automatic, but I always felt hindered by not being 100% in command of the transmission, mostly when the roads are slick.
Eventually the automatic will be superior in all situations, but at the moment they can't take into account as many factors as a person can-- ex, future road states- the incline is going to change, there's a puddle in a turn, a kitten runs into the road (or other evasive maneuvers, "some dumbass is about to rear end me at this stoplight, I should take it out of gear" or those moments when you are the dumbass and you need that bitch to turn sideways ASAP so you don't end up having to exchange insurance information in the rain)
And honestly, when you drive a manual, even if you are rocking some mid 80's faded gold Honda accord, chicks dig it. "hey baby, let's hold hands while I shift" /swoon "want to learn how to drive my stick?" /swoon (I'm sorry clutch), "shift for me, ready? Fourth" /swoon "watch me powerslide this turn" /swoon
"hey baby, I learned to drive on this tractor" is surprisingly less swoonworthy...
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I live near Los Angeles and drive there often.
If someone took away my automatic transmission because they think it's for "lazy people", I'd murder them.
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I like automatic because it's one less thing I have to think of while driving and the extra cost of Auto vs. cost savings of Manual doesn't matter to me at all. I cbf'd about what people, if any, think about which stick I use given where my life is and what I do in life 
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Another odd reason to own a manual shift is security. My sister in law drove a manual shift Suzuki as a delivery driver. One time she was attacked and her attacker tried to steal her car, but he didn't know how to drive stick. He left the car and she was able to get back in and drive away to the hospital. Real story.
It's also much harder for someone to text and drive when driving stick.
For me, driving stick connects me with the car - I can control it exactly as I like. If I need to drive in an economical fashion, I can. Lord knows how many miles I've squeaked out of a nearly empty tank by just driving a certain way. Automatics suck the joy out of driving.
A properly maintained manual shift car is fairly easy to learn on - especially if it's newer. For most people, you learn how to operate the car first in an empty parking lot or park. Once you master the clutch, driving on streets is no less difficult than an automatic.
I found it amusing that when I visited Spain, I was able to rent a stick-shift minivan for the family. It made what was essentially a Dodge Caravan actually kinda fun to drive (it was a SEAT Alhambra - a brand you don't see in the U.S.)
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EPT
