Pondering

Go to the texas visitors bureau site or tourism site. You can get a tourism book. The last one I saw had a lot of good information.

Depending upon work or lifestyle prefernce is pretty much where you will want to locate.

Austin is the state capital and has lots of IT jobs. Dallas has IT jobs as well as other industries. Austin is pretty much in the center for Dallas, Houston and San Antonio.

If you want a job in the defense industry then Killeen is right outside Ft Hood (50,000+ soldiers). Ft Hood is expected to get in another 5000 soldiers in the next few years so their civilian workforce should go up as well.

If you dont like desert stay away from the western half of the state.

If you like beaches the Galveston area is really nice.

More info would be helpful.

If you can get a current copy of The Texas Almanac, that’s probably the most complete guide to Texas there is. The suggestion about the state tourism website is good. If you want to talk to me about Texas, email me, and I’ll give you my phone #. I live in the Austin area now, grew up in San Antonio, and lived in the Houston area for 10 years. All three towns are unique and great, but in vastly different ways. Just in case nobody told you, it’s hot as hell down here, Vinny!!!! And parts of the state are hot AND humid (the eastern portions).

Kev, if it’s Austin he’s thinking about, we do need to talk to him about Austin’s very liberal bent. Not that there are not conservatives, but it really is a little diff than the rest of the state. Of course, he could move 20 miles right up the road to Williamson Co., where I live, and he’d be in Republican territory. 70% of Williamson Co. commutes to Austin anyway. But the whole Austin attitude is slightly left of center. Still, every third Texan seems to want to move there & to the Hill Country. It is a beautiful town and there’s so much life to it.

To touch on Gordon’s comment (I liked Texas BTW), you should visit first. That slogan from the Texas Tourism commercials “It’s like a whole other county” isn’t much of an exaggeration.

Mountains? Are you referring to the landfills?

Don’t get your panties in a bunch, Mike. I never said I hate Texas, you did. Actually, it’s the mealy mouthed Texans I’ve run into on my travels that rub me wrong.

You, being a Texan, are clearly biased. I’m simply offering Vinny an opinion from my perspective – having had the displeasure of travelling through Texas on several ocassions.

Vinny, if you like bull sweat, attitudes, and dust – Texas is right up your ally.

Gordon, you got me!

Yeah, there are some really desolate places here. Last year I was in El Paso, and it has become a suburb of Juarez. No thank you. I took photos from the plane over Kuwait and Iraq last year, then from the plane over West Texas. They looked pretty much the same, except we actually have clouds in Texas!

Oops, bad html code in the earlier comment. Should have been

Chisos Mountains photos

Vinny, Cait’s giving ya the straight scoop. Austin proper might be a bit much, but Cait ya gotta admit it’s fun on a Saturday night to stroll 6th st. and see how the other half lives. Besides they really have some great places to have a beer and listen to the up and commers in the music field. It’s kinda like a quick trip to Disney Land without Mickey.

Oh, indeed, 6th Street is absolutely as much fun as is legal. And for people-watching, The Drag is a squawk. Austin is a great town, and, probably one of the most gorgeous cities in the U. S. for one of its size. But, it definitely has a different attitude than the rest of the state.

Gordon, didn’t you go to UMaine? Maybe you should check out its academic rankings compared to University of Texas, Rice University (academic rating higher than Stanford), and SMU, to name only 3 of the good universities in Texas. Princeton Review College Rankings

No, but there is an outside possibility that Texas has some good universities and educated folks as well.

An outside possibility?

Agreed.

Vinny, Zack is from Texas. He spent most of his life in southeastern TX – and is presently trying to convince me that we should move down there! If you want to chat with him sometime, shoot me an email and I’ll hook you two up.

Well, even though I’ve never lived in Texas, I went to school there for a few months right after High School. I would have to recommend San Antonio. Beautiful place, lots to do, nice people, etc. There are a couple of newspapers there, so I don’t think you’ll have a problem finding a job. I would imagine that rent there is cheaper than it is in NYC. So, hypothetically, it might not be a bad move. You have to do with your life what you want to do with it Hope I was able to help out a little.

Ditto what Cait said. We can get ya in the high desert,low desert, Hill country (my favorite), Mountains, grassy plains, along the coast and or the Piney woods. Like big city living? we can find ya a city with a million or more souls, want a little slower lifestyle we got towns of around two hundred or less.
I see your planning to come in the fall or later and that’s fine, but it wouldn’t be a bad idea to visit in the summer too. Cait ain’t kidding about the heat! I’ve meet people from up north who just couldn’t adjust to it and that would be a shame to move this far just to find that your miserable. You can kiss your white Christmas good bye. Get the Texas state tourism folks to mail you their guild it’s pretty good and then give us an idea of what your looking for. Email me and I’ll give up the telephone number and do what I can to help.

Hypothetically speaking, have you gone off your rocker?

Texas? I’d have to be ordered by martial law to move in that God-forsaken wasteland. Nothing but dustbowls, searing heat, and tumbleweeds. Not a hill in sight.

Before you move there, I highly recommend you take 24 hours and drive across I-10 from Beoumont to El Paso. You may never get that day back, but you might just change your mind too…

Gordon, there are not only hills in TX, there are mountains. There are also forests, plains, coastal regions, swamps, deserts, and semi-tropical regions. The eastern portion of the state is mostly national forests and looks like the rest of the southern U. S., which, topographically, it is actually part of. In the northern part of Texas, up in the panhandle, there is even regular snow yearly. But all of it is damned hot for 7 or 8 months of the year. I’ve never seen a tumbleweed in any portion of Texas where I’ve lived. They are a phenomenon of West Texas only. Seen plenty of them out there.

Vinny, I have a link to Texas Monthly and the official web site for Texas. Check them out. My favorite city is San Antonio, although I have kids in Austin (both are Cornell grads who had never been to Texas before) who love it. They might have some better opinions for you. I’m a Fort Worth native, myself, and it is a real culture center with Bass Performance Hall (one of the top five opera houses in the WORLD), museums, one of the top zoos, night life downtown, and all kinds of professional sports teams in the Metroplex.

There are many like Gordon who hate Texas. If he had anything of value to say, he might be worth paying attention to. He does have a good blog, though!

Just messing around Mike and Vinny. Texans are a proud bunch and whenever you say anything about the State thye get pretty riled up.

Caits summation is fair, with exception to the mountains -I’m still giggling about that. I think San Antonio rocks and Texarkana is an outdoor paradise.

Just get ready for some heat.

Opera Mike? Who the hell would pciture Texans having one of the finest Opera houses in the world?

Good luck on the move Vinny, anything beats the liberal cess pool the Big East has become.

No kidding, Gordon, mountains. .

Chisos Mountains, photos

Chisos Mountains, article
Guadalupe Mountains; highest peak, Guadalupe Peak at 8,749 feet

Franklin Mountains; Didn’t you ever wonder why El Paso is named “The Pass”. It is located in a mountain pass in the Franklin Mountains, which are the tag end of the Rockies.

I’ve lived in Fort Worth and in San Antonio. San Antonio is the place for me. Things move at a slower pace and everythingís more relaxed down here as apposed to the DFW area. And a bit of advice:

Rules Yankees Should Know of When They Move To Texas

1. Don’t order a steak at a Waffle House. They serve breakfast 24 hours a day. Let them cook something they know.

2. Don’t laugh at folk’s names. Merleen, Bodie, Luther Ray, Tammy, Mari Beth, Marva, Edna Earl and Inez have been known to whip a man’s ass for less than that.

3. Don’t order a bottle of pop or a can of soda; this can lead to a beating. Down here it’s called Coke, even if you want a Pepsi, Sprite or Dr. Pepper. Got it?

4. Southern women don’t fancy the smart mouth Yankees. Just remember, they all have Big brothers and Bigger daddies.

5. Don’t show allegiances to any other school football team but the Longhorns. All the others are a bunch of candy asses who play Wyoming every other week.

6. Don’t call us a bunch of hillbillies. Most of us are better educated than you and a whole lot nicer to boot! We just talk that way to piss you off.

7. Yes, we know the humidity is high; just quit your bitching, spend your money and go home.

8. No, the state symbol of Texas is not the orange and white highway barrel. This road construction is ticking us off too.

9. Don’t go to the Cracker Barrel and substitute toast for the biscuits. If you do this, everyone will know that you’re from Nebraska. Just eat the biscuits like GOD meant for you to do. And do not order poached eggs. No one from the south eats eggs poached.

10. Don’t try to talk with a southern accent if you don’t have one or use regional idioms you can’t possibly understand. Nothing makes us madder.

11. Don’t be telling everybody how much better it was back home. We’re not going to change to make you happy. So if you don’t like it here, Delta is ready when you are.

12. Our food isn’t overcooked; yours is undercooked.

13. Down here, “Kiss my ass” is a perfectly acceptable way to close an argument. You can’t get more closure than that!

14. Flirting is a southern tradition. It doesn’t mean you’re going home with someone later. It doesn’t mean the person flirting with you is even interested. It’s all just practice.

15. Take your hat off when you say the words “Tom Landry”.

“Most of us are better educated than you.”

Ha Ha! We are discussing Texas, right?

Did you foget Bowdoin, Bates, Colby and a dozen others?

I’ve been to the Houston Airport about a dozen time, and I have to say I found the people there extremely pleasant…don’t know that I’ve met nicer airport people anywhere. Usually I’m whipping through pretty quickly (connection to Belize is only about an hour, going there or getting home) but my limited experience of Texas has been very positive.

Texas is an absolutely fantastic place to live. Don’t let Gordie fool you! I lived there for 3 years, and the people are great, which is the best reason to live anywhere.

I’d suggest anywhere between Austin and San Antonio, it doesn’t get much better than that.

Good luck.